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There was a crowd at Jerusalem Four Corners when we got there. Every moment some family was arriving in a panic the men, like my father, with guns and babies and baskets. The women, with the young, took refuge at once in the tavern, while the men surrounded it. Inside the line were youths, some oddly armed with slings or clubs or cross-guns.
The recruit our latest acquisition was so interesting. His nice clean clothes, new hat, new shoes, trimming on his shirt front, letters and cross-guns on his hat, new knife for all the fellows to borrow, nice comb for general use, nice little glass to shave by, good smoking tobacco, money in his pocket to lend out, oh, what a great convenience he was!
The Danes had meantime rifled the country with their cross-guns and killed Edmund, the good king of East Anglia, who was afterwards canonized, though gunpowder had not then been invented. Alfred was not only a godly king, but had a good education, and was a great admirer of Dickens and Thackeray.
"For your timely arrival, and your courage. Your name shall be sent to the great chief at Washington." The words were repeated to the jungle boy, and his manly little chest swelled with pride. "Piang, I am about to decorate you with the emblem of our government; these infantry cross-guns I shall pin on your breast."
Suddenly a gleam of understanding broke over him, and he grinned, broadly. With the tip of his finger he touched the shining cross-guns, then his necklace of crocodile teeth. The situation was saved. Amid thunderous applause the smiling governor fastened the guns to the indicated article of dress, and loud and clear rose the shout: "Piang! Piang!" Two years had passed since the bichara.
We had long waited for its coming, and dreamt of cross-guns, the insignia of a crack shot's proficiency, while we waited. And with the rifle came romance, and the element of responsibility. We were henceforward fighting men, numbered units, it was true, with numbered weapons, but for all that, fighters men trained to the trade and licensed to the profession.
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