lieutenant paced along a broken slab of concrete which had once been part of a pillbox commanding the valley. For with the new guns and even the scarce ammunition, the troops did not need to fear sunlight.

In his ears, too, sounded the honking which heralded an early winter. And the caterpillars which inched along and tumbled off the guns had narrow tan ruffs which clearly stated that the winter would be a hard one. Spiders, too, confirmed it.

It was one of those infrequent times when the lieutenant did not smile, which heightened the effect of his seriousness. Men moved quietly when they came near and did not linger but cat-footed away. The battery crew silently sat along the grass-niched wall and studiously regarded their boots, only glancing up when the lieutenant went the other way.

All hoped they knew what he was thinking. The winter past had not been a comfortable one: starving, they had huddled in an all-but-roofless church, parsimoniously munching upon the stores they had found buried there—stores which had not lasted through. At that time the Germans were still making sporadic raids, not yet convinced that their own democracy could not win out against the French king, but bent more upon food than glory. The brigade had marched into that town four hundred and twelve strong.

And now winter was here again, knocking with bony fingers upon their consciousness. Longingly they looked south and watched to see if the lieutenant gave any more heed to one direction than another.

Not for their lives would they have bothered him. Even Mawkey stayed afar. And it came to them with an unholy shock when they saw that a man had passed through the sentries and was approaching the lieutenant with every evidence of accosting him. Several snatched at the fellow, but, imperiously, he swept on.

He might have been a ludicrous figure at a less tense moment. He was a powerful brute, his massive, hairy head set close down upon his oxlike shoulders. But about him he clutched some kind of cloak which would have heeled an ordinary being but only came to his thighs. On his head he had a cocked hat decorated with a plume. At his side swung a sword. On his chest was a gaudy ribbon fully two feet long.

Without ceremony he planted himself squarely before the lieutenant and lifted off his hat in a sweeping, grandiloquent bow.

The lieutenant was so astonished that he did not immediately return the 

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