"Of course we did. You see, the Colonel learned from friendly Cubans that the Spaniards in that region depended for all their water on a well a few miles away over the hills--Cusco Well, it was called. So if we took that well then they’d have to git out of the country. It was up to us to destroy the well. We made all the arrangements, and one of the ships was told to shell the locality where the well was located. Finally we started off dhriving the Dagoes ahead of us, when suddenly the shells from the ship began droppin’ all about us instead of into the ranks of the enemy. Every minute they kept comin’ hotter and faster and there was little chanct of us bein’ successful as things were goin’. Then I saw one of the nerviest jobs pulled off that mornin’--one of the things ye often read about and believe is fiction. Right behind us in plain view was a high bare hill and on the top of that there hill, his back to the Spaniards and facin’ the flashin’ guns of the ship, was a marine sendin’ wigwag messages to the ship and tellin’ them where to shoot. Begorra, the bullets was a-flyin’ around him like hail. Kickin’ up little spats of dust at his feet, cuttin’ down the cactus on either side of him, singin’ through the little flag he was a-wavin’, but did he stop? Not onct--and before long the shell fire lifted and began fallin’ among them Dagoes and off they went with us marines after them, chargin’ and yellin’, sweatin’ and swearin’. Yes, we found the well and destroyed it and went back to our own lines carryin’ our dead and wounded with us. And onct again the good old Corps had scored, for Sergeant Major John Quick, the feller what did the signalin’, won the first medal of honor in the War of 1898." "Tell us some more, Dorlan," one of the bystanders pleaded. "Ah, g’wan with ye. Sure I’m so dhry now from so much blabbin’ I can drink the scuttle-butt[#] dhry, and that without half tryin’." [#] A tank holding drinking water. "Let us see the campaign medal the government gave you, will you, Mike?" asked Dick. One of his chief ambitions was to be able some day to wear some of those little bronze medals suspended from the bright colored silk ribbons on his own coat. Their intrinsic value was small but what an honor it would be to have the right to wear them. Mike Dorlan opened his ditty-box, upon which he was sitting, and fumbling around in its interior brought forth two bronze medals; one considerably larger than the other.