BY STEPHEN CRANE

A Ladder Edition at the 2,000-word level

Adapted by Mary Jeanne Blough

The Red Badge of Courage and other stories
previously published as Four Stories by Stephen Crane
Author: Stephen Crane
Adaptation: Mary Jeanne Blough

First edition 1985. Second printing 1991.
Third printing 1993. Fourth printing 1996.
This printing in 2005.

Originally published by:
Materials Development and Review Branch
English Language Programs Division
United States Information Agency
Washington, D.C.

This printing published by:
Office of English Language Programs
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C.
http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/

ISBN (Print with Audio CD) 978–1–624–25024–8
ISBN (PDF) 978–1–624–25026–2
ISBN (ePub) 978–1–624–25027–9
ISBN (mobi) 978–1–624–25029–3

Layout and Design: Caesar Jackson
Cover photograph: ©Library of Congress

The Ladder Series of books are specially prepared editions of well known American books. They have been made easier to read for the enjoyment of readers for whom English is a second language.

The series is built on a “ladder” of five steps—from 1,000 to 5,000 different English words. The books have been shortened, but they keep the ideas, facts, and pleasures found in them by American readers.

This book uses 2,000 English words. Some words in the book are above this step and will be found written in boldface letters. They are explained in the glossary at the back.

The publisher hopes the reader will enjoy this series while going up the ladder to more difficult reading.

CONTENTS

The Open Boat

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

The Blue Hotel

The Red Badge of Courage

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Glossary

THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES

The Open Boat

None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and remained upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were gray, except for the tops, which were white, and all the men knew the colors of the sea. The line between sky and water narrowed and widened, and fell and rose.

A man likes to take a bath in a bigger area than this boat could provide. These waves were frightfully rapid and tall; and each boiling, white top was a problem in the small boat.

The cook sat in the bottom, and looked with both eyes at the six inches of boat which separated him from the ocean. He had bared his fat arms as he worked to empty the water from the boat. Often he said, “God! That was a bad one.” As he remarked it, he always looked toward the east over the rough sea.

The oiler, guiding with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep away from the water that poured in. It was a thin little oar, and it often seemed ready to break.

The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he was there.

The hurt captain, lying in the front, was feeling defeat and despair. It was despair that comes, for a time at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when the business fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in her wood, whether he commands for a day or many. And this captain had in his thoughts the firm impression of a scene in the grays of dawn, with seven faces turned down in the sea. And later the remains of the ship, washed by waves, going low and lower and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep with grief, and of a quality beyond speech or tears.

“Keep her a little more south, Billie,” said he.

“A little more south, sir,” said the oiler in the back.

A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a jumpy horse, and a horse is not much smaller. The boat was much like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse leaping over a high fence. The manner of her ride over these walls of water is a thing of mystery. Each wave required a new leap, and a leap from the air. Then jumping and slipping and racing and dropping down, she steadied for the next threat.

A particular danger of the sea is the fact that after successfully getting through one wave, you discover that there is another behind it. The next wave is just as nervously anxious and purposeful to overturn boats. In a ten-foot boat one can get a good idea of the great force of the sea. As each gray wall of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat. It was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the determined water.

The sun climbed steadily up the sky. The men knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from gray to green and the white tops were like falling snow. From their low boat they could not see the sun rise. Only the color of the waves that rolled toward them told them that day was breaking.

The oiler and the correspondent rowed the tiny boat. And they rowed. They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed.

The captain, hesitating in the front, after the boat had climbed a great wave, said that he had seen the light at Mosquito Inlet. After a while, the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was at the oars then and he, too, wished to look at the lighthouse. But his back was toward the far shore. The waves were important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn his head. But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others. When at the top of it, he hurriedly searched the western water with his eyes.

“See it?” asked the captain.

“No,” said the correspondent slowly, “I didn’t see anything.”

“Look again,” said the captain. He pointed. “It’s exactly in that direction.”

At the top of another wave the correspondent did as he was told. This time his eyes found a small, still thing on the edge of the moving ocean. It was exactly like the point of a pin. It took an anxious eye to find a lighthouse so tiny.

“Think we’ll reach it, Captain?”

“If this wind stays steady and the boat doesn’t sink, we can’t do much else,” said the captain hopefully. Then he added, “Empty her, cook.”

“All right, Captain,” said the cheerful cook.

It would be difficult to describe the secure bond between men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it was on the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends—friends in a more strangely iron-bound strength than may be ordinary.

The hurt captain, lying against the water jar in the front, spoke always in a low voice and calmly. But he could never command a more ready-to-obey ship’s company than the other three in the boat. It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for their safety. There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat, there was this oneness. The correspondent, who had been taught to be a hard judge of men, knew even at the time that it was the best experience of his life. But no one said it was so. No one mentioned it.

“I wish we had a sail,” remarked the captain. “We might try my coat on the end of an oar. It would give you two boys a chance to rest.” So the cook and the correspondent held the oar and spread wide the coat. Sometimes the oiler had to turn sharply to keep the sea from breaking into the boat. But, otherwise, sailing was a success.

The lighthouse had been growing slowly larger. It now almost had color and appeared like a little gray shadow on the sky. The men holding high the oar could not be prevented from turning their heads quite often to glance at this little gray shadow.

At last, from the top of each wave, the men in the rolling boat could see land. As the lighthouse was a shadow on the sky, this land seemed only a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than paper.

The wind slowly died away. The cook and the correspondent did not now have to labor to hold high the oar. But the waves continued pushing and turning and washing the boat.

Slowly the land rose from the sea. From a black line it became a line of black and white—trees and sand. Finally the captain said he could see a house on the shore. “They’ll see us before long and come out after us,” said the cook.

The distant lighthouse rose high. “The keeper ought to be able to see us now,” said the captain.

“None of those other boats could have reached shore to give word of our ship,” said the oiler, in a low voice, “or the lifeboat would be out hunting for us.”

Slowly and beautifully the land came out of the sea. The wind came again. Finally a new sound struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low thunder of waves beating the shore. “We’ll never be able to reach the lighthouse now,” said the captain. “Swing her a little more north, Billie.”

“A little more north, sir,” said the oiler.

So the little boat turned her nose once more down the wind. All except the oarsman watched the shore grow. Doubt and fear were leaving the minds of the men. The management of the boat still took most of their attention, but it could not prevent a quiet cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they would be on shore. The nearness of success shone in their eyes. Everybody took a drink of water.

“Cook,” remarked the captain, “there doesn’t seem to be any sign of life about the house.”

“No,” replied the cook. “Strange they don’t see us.”

Tide, wind and waves were swinging the boat north. “Strange they don’t see us,” said the men.

The sea’s roar was here dulled, but its tone was nevertheless thundering and huge. As the boat swam over the great waves, the men sat listening to this roar. “We’ll overturn,” said everybody.

It is fair to say here that there was not a lifesaving station within twenty miles in either direction. But the men did not know this fact, and so they made bitter remarks concerning the eyesight of the nation’s lifesavers. Four unhappy men sat in the boat and murmured, “Strange they don’t see us.”

The earlier lightheartedness had completely disappeared. To their sharpened minds it was easy to imagine all kinds of idleness and blindness, and indeed, lack of courage. There was the shore of the land, and it was bitter and bitter to them that from it came no sign.

The captain said at last, “I suppose we’ll have to make a try for ourselves. If we stay out here too long, none of us will have strength to swim after the boat goes under.”

And so the oiler, who was at the oars, turned the boat straight for the shore. There was a sudden tightening of muscles. There was some thinking.

“If we don’t all get to shore,” said the captain, “—if we don’t all get to shore, I suppose you fellows know where to send news of my finish?”

Then they briefly exchanged some addresses and instructions. As for the thoughts of the men, there was a great deal of anger in them. They might be summed up this way: “If I am going to lose my life to the sea—if I am going to lose my life to the sea—why was I allowed to come this far to see sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to taste the holy food of life?

“It is crazy. If this old fool woman, Fate, cannot do better than this, she should be forced from the management of men’s fortunes. She is an old chicken who knows not her purposes. If she has decided to kill me, why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble? The whole affair is mad—but no; she cannot mean to kill me. She dare not. She cannot. Not after all this work.” And then each man might have had the urge to shout at the clouds. “Just kill me now, and then hear what I call you!”

The waves that came at this time were more fierce. They seemed always to break and roll over the little boat in a mass of boiling white and gray. The shore was still far away. The oiler was a wise seaman. “Boys,” he cried out, “she won’t live three minutes more, and we’re too far out to swim. Shall I take her to sea again, Captain?”

“Yes, go ahead!” said the captain.

The oiler, by a series of quick movements, great skill, and fast and steady work with the oars, turned the boat in the middle of the tide and took her to sea again.

There was a long silence as the boat rose and dropped over the rough sea to deeper water. Then somebody slowly spoke: “Well, they must have seen us from shore by now.”

“What do you think of those lifesaving people?”

“Strange they haven’t seen us.”

“Maybe they think we are out here for sport! Maybe they think we’re fishing. Maybe they think we are fools.”

It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force them south, but wind and wave said north. Far ahead, where coastline, sea and sky met, there were little dots which seemed to indicate a city on the shore.

“St. Augustine?”

The captain shook his head. “Too near Mosquito Inlet.”

And the oiler rowed, and the correspondent rowed. It was a tiring business.

“Did you ever like to row, Billie?” asked the correspondent.

“No,” said the oiler, “I hate it!”

When one exchanged the rowing seat for a place in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily experience that caused him to be careless of everything except an obligation to move one finger. There was cold sea water washing back and forth in the boat, and he lay in it. His head was pillowed on wood within an inch of the waves along the side. Sometimes the sea came in and bathed him once more. But this did not trouble him. It is almost certain that if the boat had sunk he would have fallen comfortably out upon the ocean as if it were a great soft bed.

“Look! There’s a man on the shore!”

“Where?”

“There! See him? See him?”

“Yes, sure! He’s walking along.”

“Now he’s stopped. Look! He’s facing us!”

“He’s waving at us!”

“So he is! By thunder!”

“Now we’re all right! Now we’re all right! There’ll be a boat out here for us in half an hour.”

“He’s going on. He’s running. He’s going up to that house there.”

The distant beach seemed lower than the sea, and required a searching glance to see the little black figure! The captain saw a floating stick, and they rowed to it. A white cloth was by some strange chance in the boat. Tying this on the stick, the captain waved it. The man at the oars did not dare turn his head, so he was obliged to ask questions.

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s standing still again. He’s looking, I think. There he goes again—toward the house. Now he’s stopping again.”

“Is he waving at us?”

“No, not now; he was, though.”

“Look! There comes another man!”

“He’s running.”

“Look at him go!”

“Look! There’s a fellow waving a little black flag. I’ve never seen anyone wave so hard! There come those other two fellows. Now they are talking together. Look at the fellow with the flag. I’ve never seen anyone wave so hard!”

“That isn’t a flag, is it? That’s his coat. Certainly, that’s his coat.”

“So it is; it’s his coat! He’s taken it off and is waving around his head. But would you look at him swing it!”

“What does that fool with the coat mean? What’s he signaling anyhow?”

“It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north. There must be a lifesaving station up there.”

“No, he thinks we’re fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? There, Billie.”

“I wish I could understand those signals. What do you suppose he means?”

“He doesn’t mean anything; he’s just playing.”

“Well, if he’d just signal us to try again; or to go to sea and wait; or go north, or go south, or go to hell, there would be some reason in it. But look at him! He stands there and keeps his coat turning around like a wheel. The fool!”

“There come some more people.”

“Now there’s quite a mob. Look! Isn’t that a boat?”

“Where? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that’s no boat.”

“That fellow is still waving his coat.”

“He must think we like to see him do that. Why doesn’t he stop it? It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t know. I think he is trying to make us go north. There must be a lifesaving station there somewhere.”

“He isn’t tired yet. Look at him wave!”

“I wonder how long he can do that. He’s been swinging his coat around ever since he caught sight of us. He’s crazy. Why aren’t they getting men to bring a boat out? A fishing boat could come out here all right. Why won’t he do something?”

“Oh, it’s all right now.”

“They’ll have a boat out here for us soon, now that they have seen us.”

A faint yellow color came into the sky over the low land. The shadows on the sea slowly deepened. The wind brought coldness with it, and the men felt it.

“My God!” said one, allowing his voice to express his feeling. “If we have to wait around out here! If we’ve got to stay out here all night!”

“Oh, we’ll never have to stay here all night! Don’t worry! They’ve seen us now, and they’ll come out after us soon.”

The shore grew dark. The man waving the coat and the group of people gradually became part of this darkness.

“I’d like to catch the one who waved the coat. I feel like hitting him hard, just for luck.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“Oh, nothing, but he seemed so—cheerful!”

And so the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and then the oiler rowed. Gray-faced and bent forward steadily, turn by turn, they lifted the heavy oars. The form of the lighthouse was gone from their view, but finally a pale star appeared, just lifting from the sea.

“If 1 am going to lose my life to the sea—if I am going to lose my life to the sea—why was I allowed to come this far and see sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to taste the holy food of life?”

The patient captain, leaning against the water jar, was sometimes obliged to speak to the oarsman.

“Keep her head up! Keep her head up!”

“Keep her head up, sir.” The voices were tired and low.

This was surely a quiet evening. All except the oarsman lay heavily motionless in the boat’s bottom.

A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night. As darkness fell, the shine of the light, lifting from the sea in the south, changed to full gold. In the north, a new light appeared—a small blue glow on the edge of the waters. These two lights were the furniture of the world. Otherwise there was nothing but waves.

The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was for one to row until he was no longer able. Then he would wake the other from his dead sleep in the bottom of the boat.

The oiler worked the oars until his head dropped forward and the overpowering sleep blinded him; and he rowed some more. Then he touched a man in the bottom of the boat, and called his name, “Will you row for a little while?” he asked softly.

“Sure, Billie,” said the correspondent, slowly dragging himself to a sitting position. They exchanged places carefully. And the oiler, slipping down in the sea water at the cook’s side, seemed to go to sleep instantly. Though the huge size of the waves had lessened, they still rolled the boat high. The man at the oars tried to keep her pointing into the waves so she would not turn over. The black waves were silent and hard to see in the darkness. Often one was almost upon the boat before the oarsman knew it.

In a low voice the correspondent spoke to the captain. He was not sure that the captain was awake, although this iron man seemed to be always awake. “Captain, shall I keep her going toward that light north, sir!”

The same steady voice answered him. “Yes. Keep the light a little to the left.”

The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at the two men sleeping underfoot. The cook’s arm was around the oiler’s shoulders, and with their scarce clothing and tired faces, they were the babies of the sea—a strange picture of two old babies.

After a time it seemed that even the captain slept, and the correspondent thought that he was the only man afloat on all the ocean. The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than death.

“If I am going to lose my life to the sea—if 1 am going to lose my life to the sea—why was I allowed to come this far and see sand and trees?”

During the long night, a man might decide that it was really the purpose of the seven mad gods to kill him in spite of the awful cruelty of it. But it was certainly not justice to kill a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The man felt it would be a crime. Other people had died at sea since the beginning of ships, but still—

Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of the boat. “Billie!” There was a slow and gradual movement. “Billie, would you row for a while?”

“Sure,” said the oiler.

As soon as the correspondent touched the cold, comfortable sea water in the bottom of the boat and had pressed close to the cook’s side, he was deep in sleep in spite of the cold. This sleep was so good to him that it was but a moment before he heard a voice call his name in a tone that showed great weakness. “Will you row now?”

“Sure, Billie.”

The light in the north had strangely disappeared, but the wide-awake captain told the correspondent how to go.

Later in the night, they took the boat farther out to sea. The captain told the cook to take one oar at the rear and keep the boat facing the seas. This plan enabled the oiler and correspondent to rest together. “We’ll give those boys a chance to gather some strength,” said the captain.

They curled down and slept once more the dead sleep.

When the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were each of the gray color of dawn. Later, pink and gold light shone upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendid form—a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.

On the distant sands were many little black houses, and a tall, white windmill rose above them. No man nor dog appeared on the beach. It might have been a deserted village.

The voyagers searched the shore with their eyes. They considered their position. The captain said, “If no help is coming, we might better try to reach land right away. If we stay out here much longer we will be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all.” The others silently agreed to this reasoning.

The boat was going toward the beach. The correspondent wondered if anyone ever climbed the tall wind tower, and if, then, he ever looked at the sea. This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the danger of small creatures. It represented to the correspondent the calm of Nature against the struggles of the individual—Nature in the wind, and Nature in the sight of men. Nature did not seem cruel to him then, nor kind, nor dangerous, nor wise. But she was not interested, completely not interested.

It is, perhaps, probable that a man in this situation, impressed with the lack of concern of the world, should see the many faults in his own life. They may rest badly in his mind, and he may wish for another chance. The difference between right and wrong seems all too clear to him then. And he understands that if he were given another opportunity, he would improve his conduct and his words.

“Now, boys,” said the captain, “she is going to go under. All we can do is take her in as far as possible, and then when she sinks, jump out and go toward the beach. Keep cool now, and don’t jump until she goes under.”

The oiler took the oars. “Captain,” he said, “I think I’d better keep her head to the seas and back her in.”

“All right, Billie,” said the captain. “Back her in.” The oiler turned the boat then and, seated in the rear, the cook and the correspondent had to look over their shoulders to see the lonely and distant shore.

The huge waves lifted the boat high. “We won’t get in very close,” said the captain. Each time a man could turn his attention from the sea, he glanced toward the shore, and in the expression of the eyes there was a remarkable quality. The correspondent, observing the others, knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances was hidden.

As for himself, he was too tired to fully understand the fact. He tried to force his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was slave now to the muscles. And the muscles said they did not care. He merely thought that if he should die it would be a shame.

There were no hurried words, no apparent fears. The men simply looked at the shore. “Now remember to get well away from the boat when you jump,” said the captain.

A wave suddenly fell with a thundering roar, and the water came rushing down upon the boat.

“Steady, now,” said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their eyes from the shore and waited. Then the next wave broke upon them. Rolling floods of white water caught the boat and whipped it around. Water came in from all sides.

The little boat, dying under this weight of water, sank deeper into the sea.

“Empty her out, cook! Empty her out!” said the captain.

“All right, Captain,” said the cook.

“Now, boys, the next one will finish us,” said the oiler. “Remember to jump free of the boat.”

The third wave moved forward—huge, angry, merciless. It seemed to drink the tiny boat and, at the same time, threw the men into the sea.

The January water was icy. The correspondent thought immediately that it was colder than he had expected to find it off the coast of Florida. This appeared to his dulled mind as a matter important enough to be noted at the time. The coldness of the water was sad; it was very sad. This fact was somehow mixed with opinion of his own situation, so that it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The water was cold.

When he came to the surface, he knew of little but the noisy water. Afterward he saw his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead in the race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly. Off to the correspondent’s left, cook’s great back appeared out of the water. Behind him the captain was hanging with his one unhurt hand to the overturned boat.

There is a certain motionless quality to a shore, and the correspondent wondered that it could exist so near the awful sea. It seemed very desirable. But the correspondent knew that it was a long journey, and he swam slowly.

But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was difficult. He did not stop swimming to consider what kind of current had caught him, but there his progress ceased. The shore was before him, and he looked at it and understood with his eyes each detail of it.

As the cook passed, much farther to the left, the captain was calling to him, “Turn over on your back, cook! Turn over on your back and use the oar.”

“All right, sir.” The cook turned on his back and, using the oar, went ahead as if he were a boat himself.

The boat also passed, with the captain holding on with one hand.

They passed nearer to shore—the oiler, the cook, the captain— and following them went the water jar, sailing merrily over the sea.

The correspondent remained in the grasp of this strange new enemy—a current. The shore, with its white sand and green trees, was spread like a picture before him.

He thought: “I’m going to die. Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible?” Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final act of Nature.

But later a wave pushed him out of this small, deadly current, and he found suddenly that he could again make progress toward the shore. Later still he knew that the captain had his face turned toward him and was calling his name. “Come to the boat! Come to the boat!”

In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat, he realized that when one gets tired beyond limit, death must be comfortable—an end of fighting accompanied by a large sense of relief.

After a while he saw a man running along the shore. He was removing his clothes with most remarkable speed. Coat, trousers, shirt, everything came off him like magic.

“Come to the boat!” called the captain.

“All right, Captain.” As the correspondent swam, he saw the captain stand on the floor of the ocean and leave the boat. Then the correspondent performed his one bit of magic of the voyage. A large wave caught him and threw him with ease and speed completely over the boat and far beyond it. He was amazed by his own performance and by that of the marvelous sea.

The correspondent arrived in water that reached only to his chest, but his condition did not enable him to stand for more than a moment. Each wave pushed him down again.

Then he saw the running man come leaping into the water. He dragged ashore the cook; and then went toward the captain; but the captain motioned him away and sent him to the correspondent. The man gave a strong pull, a long drag, and a big push. The correspondent said, “Thanks, old man.” But suddenly the man cried, “What’s that?” He pointed a quick finger. The correspondent said, “Go.”

In the low water, face down, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand that was sometimes, between each wave, above the sea.

The correspondent did not know all that happened afterward. When he reached safe ground he fell, striking the sand with each part of his body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof.

It seemed that instantly the beach was crowded with men bringing blankets and clothes, and with women carrying coffee. The welcome of the land to the sea was warm and generous. But a quiet and wet shape was carried up the beach. And the land’s welcome for it could only be the different and silent one of the grave.

When night came, the white waves rolled back and forth in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea’s voice to the men on the shore. And they felt that they could then understand.

The Bride comes to Yellow Sky

The great train was rushing forward such steady dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the flatlands of Texas were pouring toward the east.

A newly married pair had come on this train at San Antonio. The man’s face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun. His roughened hands were continually moving over his new black clothes in a most nervous manner. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his suit. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a shop for a haircut. The glances he gave to other passengers were few and quick.

The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue with many buttons. She continually turned her head to regard some part or other of her dress. It made her feel strange. One could tell that she had cooked and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The searching glances of some of the passengers as she had entered the car had brought the blood rushing to her face. Her uncomfortable expression was strange to see upon this plain face, which was usually calm and almost emotionless.

They were evidently very happy. “Ever been in a train like this before?” he asked, smiling with delight.

“No,” she answered, “I never was. It’s fine, isn’t it?”

“Great! After a while we’ll go forward to the dining car and get a big dinner. Finest meal in the world. Costs a dollar.”

“Oh, it does?” cried the bride. “A dollar? Oh, that’s too much— for us—isn’t it, Jack?”

“Not on this trip, at least,” he answered bravely. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves.”

Later he explained to her about the trains.

“You see, it’s a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other. The train runs straight across it, and only stops four times.” He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the beauty of the car they were riding in. And in truth her eyes opened wider as she observed the rich sea-green cloth covering the seats, the shining silver and glass, the wood that shone darkly like the surface of a pool of oil.

To the minds of the pair, their surroundings repeated the glory of their wedding that morning in San Antonio. This was the spirit of their new life, and the man’s face in particular shone with a joy that made him appear foolish to certain passengers. In the minds of some, there was supposed to be something hugely funny in the pair’s situation.

“We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42,” he said, looking tenderly into her eyes.

“Oh, are we?” she said, as if she had not been aware of it. To show surprise at her husband’s remark was part of her wifely duty. She took from a pocket a little silver watch. As she held it before her, and stared at it with a look of attention, the new husband’s face shone.

“I bought it in San Antonio from a friend of mine,” he told her proudly.

“It’s seventeen minutes past twelve,” she said, looking up at him with a happy expression which, nevertheless, showed a lack of experience in conversing with men. A passenger, observing her small nervousness, laughed to himself.

At last they went to the dining car. The man serving their table happened to take pleasure in directing them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly guide, his face shining with kindness. But they did not understand his attentions. As they returned to their seats, they showed in their faces a sense of escape.

It was evident that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became more nervous. His red hands were even more noticeable. He was rather absent-minded and faraway when the bride leaned forward and spoke to him.

As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find his deed weighing upon him like a great stone. He, the town policeman of Yellow Sky, was a man known, liked, and feared in his community. He—an important person—had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved. And there he had actually married her without discussing any part of the matter with Yellow Sky. He was now bringing his bride to a sure-to-be-surprised town.

Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them. But Potter’s thoughts of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, made him feel he was sinful. He was guilty of a great and unusual crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, he had leaped over all the social fences. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to cut any friendly duty was easy to take in his hand in that distant city. But the hour of Yellow Sky—the hour of daylight—was approaching.

He knew very well that his wedding was an important thing to the town. It could only be equaled by the burning of the new hotel. His friends could not forgive him, he felt. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of surprise, merriment, and blame. He glanced out of the window again.

Yellow Sky had a kind of band, which played its horns and drums painfully, to the delight of the people. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his arrival with his bride, they would march the band at the station and accompany them, among cheers and laughter, to his house.

He decided that he would use all methods of speed and cleverness in making the journey from the station to his house. Once safely at home, he would announce the news. Then he would not go among the citizens until they had time to master their emotions.

The bride looked anxiously at him. “What’s worrying you, Jack?”

He laughed. “I’m not worrying, girl. I’m only thinking of Yellow Sky.”

She understood, and her face turned red again.

They shared a sense of slight guilt that developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly glowing. But Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh; the deep red color upon the bride’s face did not lessen.

“We’re nearly there,” he said.

As the train began to slow, they moved forward in the car. The long line of cars moved into the station of Yellow Sky.

“The train has to get water here,” said Potter, from a tight throat and face, as one announcing death. Before the train stopped, his eye had searched the station, and he was glad and surprised to see there was no one there except the station master.

“Come on, girl,” said Potter with a thick voice. As he helped her down, they each laughed in a strained manner. He took her bag and told his wife to hold his arm. As they hurried away he saw that the station master had turned and was running toward them, waving his arms. Potter laughed, and sighed as he laughed, when he realized the first effect of his wedding upon Yellow Sky. He grasped his wife’s arm firmly to his side and they hurried away.

The California train was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men in the Weary Gentleman Saloon. One was a salesman who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep farmers who did not usually talk in the saloon. The saloon-keeper’s dog lay in front of the door. His head was resting on his feet, and he glanced sleepily here and there with the ready watchfulness of a dog that is sometimes kicked. Across the sandy street were some bright green grass spots, so wonderful in appearance next to burning sands in the hot sun. At the cooler side of the railroad station, a man without a coat sat in a chair leaned back against the building. He smoked his pipe. The waters of the Rio Grande river circled near the town, and beyond it could be seen great flatlands.

Except for the busy salesman and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was sleeping. The salesman leaned easily upon a table and told many tales with the confidence of a story teller who has found new listeners.

He was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared in the open door. He cried, “Scratchy Wilson’s drunk, and has started to make trouble.” The two Mexicans at once put down their glasses and disappeared through the rear door of the saloon.

The salesman, not understanding the importance of the warning, jokingly answered, “All right, old man. Suppose he has? Come in and have a drink anyhow.”

But the information had made such an apparent impression on everyone in the room that the salesman was forced to see its importance. All had become instantly serious. “Well,” he said, filled with mystery, “what is this?” His three companions started to tell him, but the young man at the door stopped them.

“It means, my friend,” he answered as he came into the saloon, “that for the next two hours this town won’t be very healthy.”

The saloon-keeper went to the door and locked it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden boards which covered the windows, and locked there. The salesman was looking from one to another.

“What is this, anyhow?” he cried. “You don’t mean there is going to be a gun-fight?”

“Don’t know whether there will be a fight or not,” answered one man firmly, “but there’ll be some shooting—some good shooting.”

The young man who had warned them waved his hand. “Oh, there’ll be a fight fast enough, if anyone wants it. Anybody can get a fight out there in the street. There’s a fight just waiting.”

The salesman seemed to be realizing the possibility of personal danger.

“What did you say his name was?” he asked.

“Scratchy Wilson,” voices answered together.

“And will he kill anybody? What are you going to do? Does this happen often? Can he break in that door?”

“No, he can’t break in that door,” replied the saloon keeper. “He’s tried it three times. But when he comes you’d better lie down on the floor, stranger. He’s sure to shoot at the door, and a bullet may come through.”

After that, the salesman watched the door steady. The time had not yet come for him to drop to the floor, but he carefully moved near the wall. “Will he kill anybody?” he asked again.

The men laughed, without humor, at the question.

“He’s here to shoot, and he’s here for trouble. I don’t see any good in experimenting with him.”

“But what do you do in a situation like this? What can you do?”

A man answered, “Well, he and Jack Potter—”

“But,” the other men interrupted together, “Jack Potter’s in San Antonio.”

“Well, who is he? What’s he got to do with this?”

“Oh, he’s the town policeman. He goes out and fights Scratchy when he starts acting this way.”

A nervous, waiting silence was upon them. The salesman saw that the saloon-keeper, without a sound, had taken a gun from a hiding place. Then he saw the man signal to him, so he moved across the room.

“You’d better come with me behind this table.”

“No, thanks,” said the salesman. “I’d rather be where I can get out the back door.”

At that, the saloon-keeper made a kindly but forceful motion.

The salesman obeyed, and found himself seated on a box with his head below the level of the table. The saloon-keeper sat comfortably upon a box nearby.

“You see,” he whispered, “Scratchy Wilson is a wonder with a gun—a perfect wonder. And when he gets excited, everyone gets out of his path. He’s a terror when he’s drunk. When he’s not drinking he’s all right— wouldn’t hurt anything—nicest fellow in town. But when he’s drunk—be careful!”

There were periods of stillness. “I wish Jack Potter were back from San Antonio,” said the saloon-keeper. “He shot Wilson once—in the leg. He’d come in and take care of this thing.”

Soon they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed by three wild screams. The men looked at each other. “Here he comes,” they said.

A man in a red shirt turned a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In each hand the man held a long, heavy, blue black gun. Often he screamed, and these cries rang through a seemingly deserted village. The screams sounded sharply over the roofs with a power that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary strength of a man’s voice. These fierce cries rang against walls of silence.

The man’s face flamed in a hot anger born of whiskey. His eyes, rolling but watchful, hunted the still doorways and windows. He walked with the movement of a midnight cat. As the thoughts came to him, he roared threatening information. The long guns hung from his hands like feathers, they were moved with electric speed. The muscles of his neck straightened and sank, straightened and sank, as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible invitations to battle. The calm houses preserved their dignity at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street.

There was no offer of fight—no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no answers. He screamed and shouted and waved his guns here and everywhere.

Finally the man was at the closed door of the saloon. He went to it, and beating upon it with his gun, demanded drink.

The door remained closed. He picked up a bit of paper from the street and nailed it to the frame of the door with a knife. He then turned his back upon this place and walked to the opposite side of the street. Turning quickly and easily, he fired the guns at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half-inch. He cursed at himself, and went away. Later he comfortably shot out all the windows of the house of his best friend. Scratchy was playing with this town. It was a toy for him.

But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient enemy, entered his mind. He decided that it would be a good thing if he went to Potter’s house, and by shooting at it make him come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, singing some sort of war song.

When he arrived at it, Potter’s house presented the same still front as had the other homes. Taking a good position, the man screamed an invitation to battle. But this house regarded him as a great, stone god might have done. It gave no sign. After a little wait, the man screamed more invitations, mixing with them wonderful curses.

After a while came the sight of a man working himself into deepest anger over the stillness of a house. He screamed at it. He shot again and again. He paused only for breath or to reload his guns.

Potter and his bride walked rapidly. Sometimes they laughed together, quietly and a little foolishly.

“Next corner, dear,” he said finally.

They put forth the efforts of a pair walking against a strong wind.

Potter was ready to point the first appearance of the new home. Then, as they turned the corner, they came face to face with the man in the red shirt, who was feverishly loading a large gun. Immediately the man dropped his empty gun to the ground and, like lightning, pulled out another. The second gun was aimed at Potter’s chest.

There was a silence. Potter couldn’t open his mouth. Quickly he loosened his arm from the woman’s grasp, and dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had become the color of an old cloth. She was motionless.

The two men faced each other at a distance of nine feet. Behind the gun, Wilson smiled with a new and quiet cruelty.

“Tried to surprise me,” he said. “Tried to surprise me!” His eyes grew more evil.

As Potter made a slight movement, the man pushed his gun sharply forward. “No, don’t you do it, Jack Potter. Don’t you move a finger toward a gun yet. Don’t you move a muscle. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I’m going to do it my own way—slowly, with no interruption. So just listen to what I tell you.”

Potter looked at his enemy. “I haven’t got a gun with me, Scratchy,” he said. “Honest, I haven’t.” He was stiffening and steadying, but at the back of his mind floated a picture of the beautiful car on the train. He thought of the glory of the wedding, the spirit of his new life. “You know I fight when I have to fight, Scratchy Wilson. But I haven’t got a gun with me. You’ll have to do all the shooting yourself.”

His enemy’s face turned pale with anger. He stepped forward and whipped his gun back and forth before Potter’s chest. “Don’t you tell me you haven’t got a gun with you, you dog. Don’t tell me a lie like that. There isn’t a man in Texas who ever saw you without a gun. Don’t think I’m a kid.” His eyes burned with anger and his breath came heavily.

“I don’t think you’re a kid,” answered Potter. His feet had not moved an inch backward. “I think you’re a complete fool. I tell you I haven’t got a gun, and I haven’t. If you’re going to shoot me, you’d better begin now; you’ll never get a chance like this again.”

So much enforced reasoning had weakened Wilson’s anger; he was calmer. “If you haven’t got a gun, why haven’t you got a gun?” he asked. “Been to church?”

“I haven’t got a gun because I’ve just come from San Antonio with my wife. I’m married,” said Potter. “And if I had thought there’d be a fool like you here when I brought my wife home, I would have had a gun, and don’t you forget it.”

“Married!” said Scratchy, not at all understanding.

“Yes, married. I’m married,” said Potter, clearly.

“Married?” said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time, he saw the pale, frightened woman at the other side. “No!” he said. He was like a creature allowed a glance at another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm, with the gun, dropped to his side. “Is this the lady?” he asked.

“Yes; this is the lady,” answered Potter.

There was another period of silence.

“Well,” said Wilson at last, slowly. “I suppose we won’t fight now.”

“We won’t if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn’t make the trouble.” Potter lifted the bag.

“Well, I guess we won’t fight, Jack,” said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. “Married!” He was not a student of good manners; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the wildlands. He picked up his fallen gun, and he went away. His feet made deep tracks in the heavy sand.

The Blue Hotel

The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a color of blue found on the legs of a certain bird that makes it bright in any surroundings. The Palace Hotel, then, looked always loud and screaming in a way that made the bright winter scenes of Nebraska seem only a dull gray. It stood alone, and when the snow was falling, the town two hundred yards away could not be seen.

When a traveler came from the railroad station, he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel before he came to the group of low houses which was Fort Romper. It was believed that no traveler could pass the Palace Hotel without looking at it. Pat Scully, the hotel owner, had proved himself a master at choosing paints. It is true that on clear days, when the long lines of trains swept through Fort Romper, passengers were surprised at the sight. Those that knew the brown-reds, and the dark greens of the eastern part of the country laughingly expressed shame, pity, shock. But to the citizens of this western town and to the people who stopped there, Pat Scully had performed a wonder.

As if the displayed delights of such a blue hotel were not sufficiently inviting, Scully went every morning and evening to meet the trains that stopped at Romper. He would express greetings and welcome to anyone he might see hesitating.

One morning when a snow-covered engine dragged its long string of cars to the station, Scully performed the marvelous trick of catching three men. One was a shaky and quick-eyed Swede, with a great, shining, cheap bag; one was a tall, sun-browned cowboy, who was on his way to a job near the Dakota border; one was a little silent man from the east coast, who didn’t look like it and didn’t announce it.

Scully practically made them prisoners. He was so quick and merry and kindly that each probably thought it would be cruel to try to escape. So they followed the eager little man. He wore a heavy fur cap pulled tightly down on his head. It caused his two red ears to stand out stiffly, as if they were made of tin.

At last, Scully grandly conducted them through the door of the blue hotel. The room which they entered was small. It was occupied mostly by a huge stove in the center, which was burning with great force. At various points on its surface the iron had become shiny and glowed yellow from the heat. Beside the stove, Scully’s son, Johnnie, was playing a game of cards with a farmer. They were quarreling.

With loud words Scully stopped their play, and hurried his son upstairs with the bags of the new guests. He himself led them to three bowls of icy water. The cowboy and the Easterner washed themselves in this water until they were as red as fire. The Swede, however, merely placed his fingers in the bowl. It was noticeable throughout these proceedings that the three travelers were made to feel that Scully was very kind indeed. He was giving out great favors.

Afterward they returned to the first room. There, sitting about the stove, they listened to Scully shouting at his daughters, who were preparing the noon meal. They employed the silence of experienced men who move carefully among new people. The Swede was especially silent. He seemed to be occupied in making secret judgments of each man in the room. One might have thought that he had the sense of foolish fear which accompanies guilt. He looked like a badly frightened man.

Later, at dinner, he spoke a little, directing his conversation entirely to Scully. He said that he had come from New York, where he had worked for ten years as a suit maker. These facts seemed to interest Scully, and afterward he told that he had lived at Romper for fourteen years. The Swede asked about the crops and the price of labor. He seemed hardly to listen to Scully’s lengthy replies. His eyes continued to wander from man to man.

Finally, with a laugh, he said that some of these western towns were very dangerous; and after this declaration he straightened his legs under the table, nodded his head, and laughed again, loudly. It was plain that this had no meaning to the others. They looked at him, wondering and in silence.

After dinner, it was decided to play a game of cards. The cowboy offered to play with Johnnie, and they all turned to ask the Swede to play with the little Easterner. The Swede asked some questions about the game. Learning that it wore many names, and that he had played it under another name, he accepted the invitation.

He came toward the men nervously, as though he expected to be attacked. Finally, seated, he looked from face to face and laughed sharply. This laugh was so strange that the Easterner looked up quickly, the cowboy sat with his mouth open, and Johnnie paused, holding the cards with still fingers.

Afterward there was a short silence. Then Johnnie said, “Well, let’s begin. Come on now!” They pulled their chairs forward until their knees touched under the table. They began to play, and their interest in the game caused the others to forget the strange ways of the Swede.

Suddenly the Swede spoke to Johnnie: “I suppose there have been a good many men killed in this room.” The mouths of the others dropped open and they looked at him.

“What are you talking about?” said Johnnie.

The Swede laughed again his loud laugh, full of a kind of false courage. “Oh, you know what I mean all right,” he answered.

“I don’t!” Johnnie protested. The card game stopped, and the men stared at the Swede. Johnnie evidently felt that as the son of the hotel-owner he should make a direct inquiry. “Now, what are you trying to say?” he asked.

The Swede’s fingers shook on the edge of the table. “Oh, maybe you think I haven’t been anywhere. Maybe you think I don’t have any experience?”

“I don’t know anything about you,” answered Johnnie “and I don’t care where you’ve been. I just don’t know what you’re trying to say. Nobody has ever been killed in this room.”

The cowboy, who had been steadily gazing at the Swede, then spoke: “What’s wrong with you, fellow?”

Apparently it seemed to the Swede that he was powerfully threatened. He trembled, and turned pale near the comers of his mouth. He sent an appealing glance in the direction of the little Easterner. “They say they don’t know what I mean,” he remarked bitterly to the Easterner.

The latter answered after long and careful thought. “I don’t understand you,” he said calmly.

The Swede made a movement then which announced that he thought he had met attack from the only place where he had expected sympathy, if not help. “I see that you are all against me. I see—”

The cowboy felt as though he had lost his senses. “Say,” he cried, as he threw the cards fiercely down upon the table, “say, what are you trying to do?”

The Swede jumped up. “I don’t want to fight!” he shouted. “I don’t want to fight!”

The cowboy stretched his long legs slowly and carefully. His hands were in his pockets. “Well, who thought you did?” he inquired.

The Swede moved rapidly back toward a corner of the room. His hands were out protectingly in front of his chest, but he was making an apparent struggle to control his fright. “Gentlemen,” he almost whispered, “I suppose I am going to be killed before I can leave this house! I suppose I am going to be killed before I can leave this house!”

A door opened, and Scully himself entered. He paused in surprise as he noted the terror-filled eyes of the Swede. Then he said, “What’s the matter here?”

The Swede answered him quickly and eagerly: “These men are going to kill me.”

“Kill you!” shouted Scully. “Kill you! What are you talking about?”

The Swede put out his hands helplessly.

Scully turned upon his son. “What is this, Johnnie?”

The lad had become ill-tempered. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.” He began to pick up the cards, gathering them together angrily. “He says a good many men have been killed in this room, or something like that. And he says he’s going to be killed here, too. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s probably crazy.”

Scully then looked for explanation to the cowboy, but the cowboy simply shook his head.

“Kill you?” said Scully again to the Swede. “Kill you? Man, you’re crazy.”

“Oh, I know,” burst out the Swede. “I know what will happen. Yes, I’m crazy—yes. Yes, of course, I’m crazy—yes. But I know one thing—” There was suffering and terror upon his face. “I know I won’t get out of here alive.”

Scully turned suddenly and faced his son. “You’ve been troubling this man!”

Johnnie’s voice was loud with its burden of undeserved blame. “Why, good God, I haven’t done anything to him!”

The Swede broke in. “Gentlemen, do not trouble yourselves. I will leave this house. I will go away, because—” he blamed them with his glance— “because I do not want to be killed.”

“You will not go away,” said Scully. “You will not go away until I hear the reason of this business. If anybody has troubled you, I will take care of him. This is my house. You are under my roof, and I will not allow any peaceful man to be troubled here.” He looked threateningly at Johnnie, the cowboy, and the Easterner.

“Don’t, Mr. Scully, don’t. I will go away. I do not want to be killed.” The Swede moved toward the door which opened to the stairs. It was evidently his intention to go at once for his bag.

“No, no,” shouted Scully commandingly; but the pale-faced man slipped by him and disappeared. “Now,” Scully angrily to the others, “what does this mean?”

Johnnie and the cowboy cried together: “Why, we didn’t do anything to him!”

Scully’s eyes were cold. “No,” he said, “you didn’t?”

Johnnie repeated his words. “Why, this is the wildest madman I ever saw. We didn’t do anything at all. We were just sitting here playing cards, and he—”

The father suddenly spoke to the Easterner. “What have these boys been doing?”

The Easterner thought again. “I didn’t see anything wrong at all,” he said at last, slowly.

Scully began to shout. “But what does it mean?” He stared fiercely at his son. “I ought to beat you for this, my boy.”

Johnnie was wild. “Well, what have I done?” he screamed at his father.

“I think you are tongue-tied,” said Scully finally to his son, the cowboy, and the Easterner; and at the end of this sentence he left the room.

Upstairs the Swede was closing his bag. His back was half-turned toward the door, and hearing a noise there, he turned and jumped up, uttering a loud cry. Scully’s face was frightening in the light of the small lamp he carried. This yellow shine, streaming upward, left his eyes in deep shadows. He looked like a murderer.

“Man! Man!” exclaimed Scully. “Have you gone mad?”

“Oh, no! Oh, no!” answered the other. “There are people in this world who know nearly as much as you do—understand?”

For a moment they stood gazing at each other. Then Scully placed the light on the table and sat himself on the edge of the bed. He spoke slowly. “I never heard of such a thing in my life. It’s a complete mystery. I can’t think how you ever got this idea into your head.” Then Scully lifted his eyes and asked, “And did you really think they were going to kill you?”

The Swede looked at the old man as if he wished to see into his mind. “I did,” he said at last. He apparently thought that this answer might cause an attack. As he worked on his bag his whole arm shook, the elbow trembling like a bit of paper.

Having finished with his bag, the Swede straightened himself. “Mr. Scully,” he said with sudden courage, “how much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” said the old man angrily.

“Yes, I do,” answered the Swede. He took some money from his pocket and held it out to Scully, but the latter moved his hand away in firm refusal.

“I won’t take your money,” said Scully. “Not after what’s been happening here.” Then a plan seemed to come to him. “Here,” he cried, picking up his lamp and moving toward the door. “Here! Come with me a minute.”

“No,” said the Swede, in great alarm.

“Yes,” urged the old man. “Come on! I want you to come—just across the hall—in my room.”

The Swede must have decided that the hour of his death had come. His mouth dropped open and his teeth showed like a dead man’s. He at last followed Scully across the hall, but he had the step of one hung in chains.

“Now,” said the old man. He dropped suddenly to the floor and put his head beneath the bed. The Swede could hear his dulled voice. “I’d keep it under my pillow if it weren’t for that boy Johnnie. Where is it now? I never put it twice in the same place. There—now, come out!”

Finally he came out from under the bed, dragging with him an old coat. “I’ve got it,” he whispered. Still on the floor on his knees, he unrolled the coat and took from it a large, yellow-brown whiskey bottle.

His first act was to hold the bottle up to the light. Satisfied, apparently, that nobody had touched it, he pushed it with a generous movement toward the Swede.

The weak-kneed Swede was about to eagerly grasp this element of strength, but he suddenly pulled his hand away and cast a look of terror upon Scully.

“Drink,” said the old man in a friendly tone. He had risen to his feet, and now stood facing the Swede.

There was a silence. Then again Scully said, “Drink!”

The Swede laughed wildly. He seized the bottle, put it to mouth. And as his lips curled foolishly around the opening and his throat worked, he kept his glance, burning with hate, upon the old man’s face.

After the departure of Scully, the three men, still at the table, sat for a long moment in surprised silence. Then Johnnie said, “That’s the worst man I ever saw.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the Easterner.

“Well, what do you think makes him act that way?” asked the cowboy.

“He’s frightened.” The Easterner knocked his pipe against the stove. “He’s frightened right out of his senses.”

“At what?” asked Johnnie and the cowboy together.

“I don’t know, but it seems to me this man has been reading cheap novels about the West, and he thinks he’s in the middle of it—the shooting and killing and all.”

“But,” said the cowboy, deeply shocked, “this isn’t a wild place. This is Nebraska.”

“Yes,” added Johnnie, “and why doesn’t he wait until he really gets out West?”

The traveled Easterner laughed. “Things aren’t bad even there— not in these days. But he thinks he’s right in the middle of hell.”

Johnnie and the cowboy thought for a long while.

“It’s strange,” remarked Johnnie at last.

“Yes,” said the cowboy. “This is a queer game. I hope we don’t get a lot of snow, because then we’d have to have this man with us all the time. That wouldn’t be any good.”

Soon they heard a loud noise on the stairs, accompanied by jokes in the voice of old Scully; and laughter, evidently from the Swede. The men around the stove stared in surprise at each other. The door swung open, and Scully and the Swede came into the room.

Five chairs were now placed in a circle about the stove. The Swede began to talk, loudly and angrily. Johnnie, the cowboy, and the Easterner remained silent while old Scully appeared to be eager and full of sympathy.

Finally the Swede announced that he wanted a drink of water. He moved in his chair, and said that he would go and get some.

“I’ll get it for you,” said Scully at once.

“No,” refused the Swede roughly. “I’ll get it for myself.” He got up and walked with the manner of an owner into another part of the hotel.

As soon as the Swede was out of the room, Scully jumped to his feet and whispered quickly to the others: “Upstairs he thought I was trying to poison him.”

“This makes me sick,” said Johnnie. “Why don’t you throw him out in the snow?”

“He’s all right now,” declared Scully. “He was from the East, and he thought this was a rough place. That’s all. He’s all right now.”

The cowboy looked with admiration upon the Easterner. “You were right,” he said.

“Well,” said Johnnie to his father, “he may be all right now, but I don’t understand it. Before, he was afraid, but now he’s too brave.”

Scully now spoke to his son. “What do I keep? What do I keep? What do I keep?” he demanded in a voice like thunder. He struck his knee sharply to indicate he himself was going to make reply, and that all should listen. “I keep a hotel,” he shouted. “A hotel, do you hear? A guest under my roof has special privileges. He is not to be threatened. Not one word shall he hear that would make him want to go away. There’s no place in this town where they can say they took in a guest of mine because he was afraid to stay here.” He turned suddenly upon the cowboy and the Easterner. “Am I right?”

“Yes, Mr. Scully,” said the cowboy, “I think you’re right.” “Yes, Mr. Scully,” said the Easterner, “I think you’re right.”

At supper that evening, the Swede burned with energy. He sometimes seemed on the point of bursting into loud song, and in all of his madness he was encouraged by old Scully. The Easterner was quiet; the cowboy sat in wide-mouthed wonder, forgetting to eat, while Johnnie angrily finished great plates of food. The daughters of the house, when they were obliged to bring more bread, approached as carefully as rabbits. Having succeeded in their purpose, they hurried away with poorly-hidden fear. The Swede controlled the whole feast, and he gave it the appearance of a cruel affair. He seemed to have grown suddenly taller; he gazed bitterly into every face. His voice rang through the room.

After supper, as the men went toward the other room, the Swede hit Scully hard on the shoulder. “Well, old boy, that was a good meal.”

Johnnie looked hopefully at his father. He knew that the old man’s shoulder was still painful from an old hurt. And indeed, it appeared for a moment as if Scully were going to flame out in anger about it. But Scully only smiled a sickly smile and remained silent. The others understood that he was admitting his responsibility for the Swede’s new attitude.

When they were gathered about the stove, the Swede insisted on another game of cards. In his voice there was always a great threat. The cowboy and the Easterner both agreed, without interest, to play. Scully said that he would soon have to go to meet the evening train, and so the Swede turned to Johnnie. For a moment their glances crossed like swords, and then Johnnie smiled and said, “Yes, I’ll play.”

They formed a square around the table. The Easterner and the Swede again played together. As the game continued, it was noticeable that the cowboy was not playing as noisily as before.

Scully left to meet the train. In spite of his care, an icy wind blew into the room as he opened the door. It scattered the cards and froze the players. The Swede cursed frightfully. When Scully returned, his icy entrance interrupted a comfortable and friendly scene. The Swede cursed again, but soon they were once more giving attention to their game, their heads bent forward and their hands moving fast.

Scully took up a newspaper, and as he slowly turned from page to page it made a comfortable sound. Then suddenly he heard three awful words: “You are cheating!”

The little room was now filled with terror. After the three words, the first sound in the room was made by Scully’s paper as it fell forgotten to his feet. His eyeglasses had fallen from his nose, but by a grasp he had caught them. He stared at the card-players.

Probably the silence was only an instant long. Then, if the floor had been suddenly pulled out from under the men, they could not have moved more quickly. The five had thrown themselves at a single point. Johnnie, as he rose to throw himself upon the Swede, almost fell. The loss of the moment allowed time for the arrival of Scully. It also gave the cowboy time to give the Swede a good push which sent him backwards.

The men found voices together, and shouts of anger, appeal, or fear burst from every throat. The cowboy pushed and pulled feverishly at the Swede, and the Easterner and Scully held wildly to Johnnie. But through the smoky air, above the straining bodies of the peace-compellers, the eyes of the enemies steadily warned each other.

Scully’s voice was loudest. “Stop now! Stop, I say! Stop, now—” Johnnie, as he struggled to break away from Scully and the Easterner, was crying, “Well, he says I cheated! He says I cheated! I won’t allow any man to say I cheated! If he says I cheated him, he’s a—!”

The cowboy was telling the Swede, “Stop now! Do you hear?”

The screams of the Swede never ceased: “He did cheat! I saw him! I saw him!”

As for the Easterner, he was begging in a voice that was not heard: “Wait a moment, can’t you? Oh, wait a moment. What’s the use of fighting over a game of cards? Wait a moment.”

In-this noisy quarrel, no complete sentence was clear. “Cheat”— “Stop”—”He says”—these pieces cut the screaming and rang out sharply. It was remarkable that Scully, who undoubtedly made the most noise, was the least heard.

Then suddenly there was a great stillness. It was as if each man had paused for breath. Although the room still filled with the anger of men, it could be seen there was no danger of immediate fighting.

At once Johnnie pushed forward. “Why did you say I cheated? Why did you say I cheated. I don’t cheat, and I won’t let any man say I do!”

The Swede said, “I saw you! I saw you!”

“Well,” cried Johnnie, “I’ll fight any man who says I cheat!”

“No, you won’t,” said the cowboy. “Not here.”

Johnnie spoke to the Swede again. “Did you say I cheated?”

The Swede showed his teeth. “Yes.”

“Then,” said Johnnie, “we must fight.”

“Yes, fight,” roared the Swede. He was like a mad devil. “Yes, fight! I’ll show you what kind of a man I am! I’ll show you who you want to fight! Maybe you think I can’t fight! Maybe you think I can’t! I’ll show you, you criminal! Yes, you cheated! You cheated! You cheated!”

“Well, let’s start, then, fellow,” said Johnnie coolly.

The cowboy turned in despair to Scully. “What are you going to do now?”

A change had come over the old man. He now seemed all eagerness; his eyes glowed.

“We’ll let them fight,” he answered bravely. “I can’t watch this any longer. I’ve endured this cursed Swede till I’m sick. We’ll let them fight.”

The men prepared to go out. The Easterner was so nervous that he had great difficulty putting on his new leather coat. As the cowboy pulled his fur cap down over his ears, his hands trembled. In fact, Johnnie and old Scully were the only ones who displayed no emotion. No words were spoken during these proceedings.

Scully threw open the door. Instantly a wild wind caused the flame of the lamp to struggle for its life. The men lowered their heads and pushed out into the cold.

No snow was falling, but great clouds of it, swept up from the ground by the fierce winds, were streaming all around. The covered land was a deep blue, and there was no other color except one light shining from the low, black railroad station. It looked like a tiny jewel.

The Swede was calling out something. Scully went to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and indicated an ear. “What did you say?”

“I said,” screamed the Swede again, “ I won’t have a chance against this crowd. I know you’ll all jump on me.”

“No, no, man—” called Scully. But the wind tore the words from his lips and scattered them far.

The Swede shouted a curse, but the storm also seized the remainder of the sentence.

The men turned their backs upon the wind, and walked to the sheltered side of the hotel. Here a V-shaped piece of icy grass had not been covered by the snow. When they reached the spot, it was heard that the Swede was still screaming.

“Oh, I know what kind of a thing this is! I know you’ll jump on me. I can’t beat you all!”

Scully turned on him angrily. “You won’t have to beat all of us. You’ll have to beat my son Johnnie. And the man that troubles you during that time will have to deal with me.”

The arrangements were quickly made. The two men faced each other, obeying the short commands of Scully. The Easterner was already cold and he was jumping up and down. The cowboy stood rock-like.

The fighters had not removed any clothing. Their hands were ready, and they eyed each other in a calm way that had the elements of fierce cruelty in it.

“Now!” said Scully.

The two leaped forward and struck together like oxen. There was heard the dull sound of blows, and of a curse pressed out between the tight teeth of one.

As for the watchers, the Easterner’s held-in breath burst from him in relief, pure relief after the anxious waiting. The cowboy leaped into the air with a scream. Scully stood unmoving, as if in complete surprise and fear at the fierceness of the fight which he himself had permitted and arranged.

For a time the fight in the darkness was such a scene of flying arms that it showed no more detail than a moving wheel. Sometimes a face would shine out, frightful and marked with pink spots. A moment later, the men would be only shadows.

Suddenly the cowboy was caught by warlike desires, and he leaped forward with the speed of a wild horse. “Hit him, Johnnie! Hit him! Kill him! Kill him!”

“Keep still,” said Scully, icily.

Then there was a sudden loud sound, dull, incomplete, cut short. Johnnie’s body fell away from the Swede, with sickening heaviness to the grass. The cowboy hardly had time to prevent the mad Swede from throwing himself upon the fallen body.

Scully was at his son’s side. “Johnnie! Johnnie, my boy!” His voice had a quality of sad tenderness. “Johnnie! Can you fight some more?” He looked anxiously down into the bloody, beaten face of his son.

There was a moment of silence. And then Johnnie answered in his ordinary voice, “Yes—I—it—yes.”

Helped by his father, he struggled to his feet. “Wait a minute now till you get your breath,” said the old man.

A few steps away, the cowboy was telling the Swede, “No you don’t. Wait a second.”

The Easterner was pulling at Scully’s arm. “Oh, this is enough!” he begged. “This is enough! Let it go as it is. This is enough!”

“Bill,” said Scully, “get out of the way.” The cowboy stepped aside. “Now.”

The fighters advanced toward each other. Then the Swede aimed a lightning blow that carried with it his entire weight. Johnnie, though faint from weakness, luckily stepped aside, and the unbalanced Swede fell to the ground.

The cowboy, Scully, and the Easterner cheered, but before its finish the Swede was up and attacking his enemy madly. There were more wildly moving arms and Johnnie’s body again fell away, like a stone.

The Swede quickly struggled to a little tree and leaned upon it, breathing hard, while his fierce and flame-lit eyes wandered from face to face as the men bent over Johnnie.

“Can you still fight, Johnnie?” asked Scully in a voice of despair.

After a moment, the son answered, “No—I—can’t fight—any— more.” Then, from shame and bodily ill, he began to weep, the tears pouring down through the blood on his face. “He was too—too—too heavy for me.”

Scully straightened and spoke to the waiting figure. “Stranger,” he said calmly, “we’re finished.” Then his voice changed into that deep and quiet tone which is the tone of the most simple and deadly announcements. “Johnnie is beaten.”

Without replying, the winner moved away to the door of the hotel. The others raised Johnnie from the ground, and, as soon as he was on his feet, he refused all attempts at help. When the group came around the corner they were almost blinded by the blowing snow. It burned their faces like fire. The cowboy carried Johnnie through the piles of snow to the door.

Inside they were greeted by a warm stove and women who took Johnnie to the kitchen. The three others sat around the heat, and the sad quiet was broken only by the sounds overhead when the Swede moved about in his room.

Soon they heard him on the stairs. He threw the door open and walked straight to the middle of the room. No one looked at him. “Well,” he said loudly to Scully, “I suppose you’ll tell me now how much I owe you?”

The old man, with a dull expression, remained calm. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Mr. Scully,” called the Swede again, “how much do I owe you?” He was dressed to go, and he had his bag in his hand.

“You don’t owe me anything,” repeated Scully in the same unmoved way.

“I guess you’re right. I guess the truth would be that you would owe me something. That’s what I guess.” He turned to the cowboy.

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” he repeated, in the tone the cowboy had used. Then he laughed.

But he might have been laughing at the dead. The three men did not move or speak—just stared with glassy eyes at the stove.

The Swede opened the door and passed into the storm, giving one last glance at the still group.

The Swede’s face, fresh from Johnnie’s blows, felt more pleasure than pain in the wind and the whipping snow. A number of square shapes appeared before him and he recognized them as the houses of the town. He traveled along a street until he found a saloon. He pushed open the door and entered. At the end of the room four men sat drinking at a table.

The Swede dropped his bag upon the floor and, smiling at the saloon-keeper, said, “Give me some whiskey, will you?” The man placed a bottle, a whiskey glass, and a glass of ice-filled water upon a table. The Swede poured himself an extra large amount of whiskey and drank it down.

“Bad night,” remarked the saloon-keeper, without interest. He was acting as though he were not noticing the man, but it could have been seen that he was secretly studying the remains of blood on the Swede’s face. “Bad night,” he said again.

“Oh, it’s good enough for me,” replied the Swede, as he poured himself some more whiskey. “No,” continued the Swede, “this isn’t too bad weather. It’s good enough for me.”

The large drinks of whiskey made the Swede’s eyes watery, and he breathed a little heavier. “Well, I guess I’ll take another drink,” said the Swede after a while. “Would you like something?”

“No, thanks; I’m not drinking. How did you hurt your face?”

The Swede immediately began to talk loudly. “Oh, in a fight. I beat the soul out of a man at Scully’s hotel.”

This caught the interest of the four men at the table.

“Who was it?” asked one.

“Johnnie Scully, son of the man who owns the hotel. He will be nearly dead for some weeks, I can tell you, I beat him well, I did. He couldn’t get up. They had to carry him into the house. Have a drink?”

Instantly the men in a quiet way surrounded themselves in privacy. “No, thanks,” said one.

It was a strange group. Two were well-known local businessmen; one was a lawyer; and one was a gambler.

But a close look at the group would not have enabled an observer to pick the gambler from the other men. He was, in fact, so delicate in manner and so careful with whom he gambled that the men of the town completely trusted and admired him.

His business was regarded with fear and lack of respect. That is why, without doubt, his quiet dignity shone brightly above the quiet dignity of men who might be merely hat-makers, or builders or salesmen. Beyond an occasional unwise traveler who came by rail, this gambler supposedly cheated only careless farmers who, when rich with good crops, drove into town full of foolish pride. Hearing at times of such a farmer, the important men of Romper usually laughed at his losses. And if they thought of the gambler at all, it was with a kind of pride of knowing he would never dare to attack their wisdom and courage.

Besides, it was known that this gambler had a wife and two children in a nice little house, where he led a perfect home life. And when anyone even suggested that there was a fault in his character, the men immediately described the virtues of his family life.

And one must not forget to declare the bare fact of his entire position in Romper. It is true that in all affairs other than his business, this card-player was so generous, so fair, so good, that he could be considered to have a higher moral sense than nine-tenths of the citizens of Romper.

And so it happened that he was seated in this saloon with two local businessmen and the lawyer.

The Swede continued to drink whiskey and to try to make the saloon-keeper drink with him. “Come on. Have a drink. Come on. No? Well, have a little one, then. By God, I’ve beaten a man tonight, and I beat him good, too! Gentlemen,” the Swede cried to the men at the table, “have a drink?”

“Ssh! Quiet!” said the saloon-keeper.

The group at the table, although really interested, had been trying to appear busy in talk. But now a man lifted his eyes toward the Swede and said shortly, “Thanks. We don’t want any more.”

At this reply, the Swede straightened. “Well,” he shouted, “it seems I can’t get anybody to drink with me. I want someone to drink with me now. Now! Do you understand?” He struck the table with his hand.

Years of experience had hardened the saloon-keeper. He merely answered, “I hear you.”

“Well,” cried the Swede, “listen then. See those men over there? Well, they’re going to drink with me, and don’t you forget it. Now you watch.”

“Stop that!” shouted the saloon-keeper.

“Why should I?” demanded the Swede. He walked to the men’s table, and by chance laid his hand on the shoulder of the gambler. “What about it?” he asked angrily. “I asked you to drink with me.”

The gambler simply turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. “My friend, I don’t know you.”

“Never mind!” answered the Swede. “Come and have a drink.”

“Now, my boy,” advised the gambler kindly, “take your hand off my shoulder and go away.” He was a little, thin man and it seemed strange to hear him use this tone to the big Swede. The other men at the table said nothing.

“What! You won’t drink with me, you little fool? I’ll make you then! I’ll make you!” The Swede had grasped the gambler fiercely at the throat, and was dragging him from his chair. The other men jumped up. The saloon-keeper ran toward the table. There was a great scene of shouts and movements, and then a long knife appeared in the hand of the gambler. It shot forward, and a human body was cut as easily as if it had been a piece of fruit. The Swede fell with a cry of greatest surprise.

The businessmen and the lawyer must have rushed out of the place backward. The saloon-keeper found himself hanging weakly to the arm of a chair and gazing into the eyes of a murderer.

“Henry,” said the latter, “you tell them where to find me. I’ll be home waiting.” Then he left. A moment afterward the saloon-keeper was in the street racing through the storm for help and, more important, companionship.

Months later, the cowboy was cooking meat on the stove of a small cattle farm near the Dakota border when there was the sound of a horse stopping outside. The Easterner entered with mail and newspapers.

Well,” said the Easterner at once, “the fellow who killed the Swede will spend three years in prison. That’s not much, is it?”

“He will? Three years!” The cowboy turned the meat in the pan. “Three years. That isn’t much.”

“No,” replied the Easterner. “There was a lot of sympathy for him in Romper.”

“If the saloon-keeper had been any good,” said cowboy thoughtfully, “he would have gone in and hit that Swede on the head with a bottle in the beginning of it. That would have stopped all this murdering.”

“Yes, a thousand things might have happened,” said the Easterner sharply.

The cowboy moved his pan of meat on the fire, continued with his philosophy. “It’s strange, isn’t it? If he hadn’t said Johnnie was cheating, he’d be alive this minute. He was an awful fool. I believe he was crazy.”

“I feel sorry for that gambler,” said the Easterner.

“So do I,” said the cowboy. “He doesn’t deserve three years in prison for killing that fellow.”

“The Swede might not have been killed if everything had been honest.”

“Might not have been killed?” exclaimed the cowboy. “Everything honest? When he said that Johnnie was cheating and acted so crazy? And then in the saloon he practically asked to get hurt?” With these arguments the cowboy made the Easterner angry.

“You’re a fool!” cried the Easterner fiercely. “You’re a bigger fool than that Swede. Now let me tell you one thing. Let me tell you one thing. Listen! Johnnie was cheating!”

“Johnnie,” said the cowboy, blankly. There was a minute of silence, and then he said strongly, “Oh, no. The game was only for fun.”

“Fun or not,” said the Easterner, “Johnnie was cheating. I saw him. I know it. I saw him. And I refused to stand up and be a man. I let the Swede fight alone. And you—you were simply jumping around the place and wanting to fight. And old Scully too. We are all in it! This poor gambler just got pulled into it. Every sin is the result of shared effort. We, five of us, have shared in the murder of this Swede. You, I, Johnnie, old Scully; and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came merely at the end of a human movement, and gets all the punishment.”

The cowboy, hurt and angry, cried out blindly into this mystery of thought: “Well, I didn’t do anything, did I?”

The Red Badge of Courage

Chapter 1

The cold passed slowly from the earth, and the lifting dawn revealed an army stretched across the hills, resting. As the hillsides changed from brown to green, the army awakened and began to tremble with eagerness at the talk of battle. A river, yellow-colored, curled at the army’s feet. At night, when the stream had become a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eye-like glow of enemy campfires in the distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier went to wash a shirt. He came rushing back from a brook waving his shirt like a flag. He was breathless with a tale he had heard from a good friend.

“We’re going to move tomorrow—sure,” he said importantly. “We’re going up along the river, across, and come around behind them.”

To his listeners he told a loud and careful story of a very smooth battle plan. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups.

“It’s a lie! That’s all it is—a thundering lie!” said another soldier loudly. His smooth face was red and his hands were pushed angrily into his pockets. He considered the matter as a wrong against him. “I don’t believe the old army’s ever going to move. I’ve been ready to go eight times in the last two weeks, and we haven’t moved yet.”

The tall soldier felt required to defend the truth of the story he himself had introduced. He and the loud one almost started fighting about it.

There was a youthful soldier who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall one and to the varied remarks of his friends. After listening to discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his tent. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him.

The youth was in a condition of shock. So they were at last going to fight! Tomorrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he had to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with certainty a sign that he was about to take part in one of those great affairs of the world.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life—of uncertain and bloody fights that had excited him with their vastness and fire. In dreams, he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined people secure in the protection of his fierce bravery. But, awake, he had regarded battles as bloody marks on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the past with his imaginings of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world’s history which he regarded as “the time of the wars.” But it, he thought, had disappeared forever.

He had wanted several times to join the army. Tales of great movements shook the land. There seemed to be much glory in them. He had read of marches, advances, battles, and he had wanted to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures filled with breathless deeds.

But his mother had prevented him from going. She looked with little favor upon the quality of his war spirit. She could calmly seat herself and give him many hundreds of reasons why he was more important on the farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep belief.

At last, however, he had taken a firm position. The newspapers, the talk of the village, his own imaginings, had excited him to an uncontrollable degree. They were in truth, fighting finely down there. Almost every day the newspapers talked of victory.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the ringing of the church bell. Someone was pulling the bell rope wildly to tell the news of a great battle. This voice of the people, joyful in the night, had made him tremble in excitement. Later, he had gone down to his mother’s room and had told her, “Ma, I’m going to join the army.”

“Henry, don’t you be a fool,” his mother had replied. She had then covered her face with the blanket. There was an end to the matter for that night.

Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his mother’s farm and had joined a regiment that was forming there. When he had returned home, his mother was milking a cow. Four others stood waiting. “Ma, I’ve joined,” he said to her hesitatingly. There was a short silence. “The Lord’s will be done, Henry,” she had finally replied, and had then continued to milk the cow.

When he had stood in the doorway with his blue soldier’s clothes on his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes, he had seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother’s tired face.

Still, she had surprised him by saying nothing about his returning. He had privately been ready for a beautiful scene. He had prepared certain sentences which he thought could be used to produce great emotion. But her words destroyed his plans. She had steadily cut potatoes and spoken as follows: “You be careful, Henry, and take good care of yourself. Don’t think you can beat the whole rebel army at the start, because you can’t. You’re just one little fellow among a lot of others, and you have to keep quiet and do what they tell you. I know how you are, Henry.

“And always be careful when you choose your friends. There are lots of bad men in the army, Henry. The army makes them wild. They like nothing better than taking a young fellow like you, who has never been away from home much and has always had a mother, and teaching him to drink liquor and curse. Stay away from them, Henry. I don’t want you ever to do anything, Henry, that you would be ashamed to tell me about. Just act as if I were watching you. If you keep that in your mind always, I guess you’ll come out all right.

“You must always remember your father, too, child. And remember he never drank a drop of liquor in his life, and seldom cursed, either.

“I don’t know what else to tell you, Henry, except that you must never avoid your duty, child. If a time comes when you have to be killed or do a bad thing, Henry, don’t think of anything except what’s right. Many women have to endure such things in these times, and the Lord will take care of us all.

“Don’t forget your shirts, child, and try and keep warm and dry. Good-bye, Henry. Be careful, and be a good boy.”

He had, of course, not been patient during the speech. It had not been quite what he expected. He departed, feeling a kind of relief.

Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had seen his mother kneeling among the potatoes. Her brown face, upraised, was marked with tears, and her body was shaking. He had lowered his head and gone ahead, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purpose.

From his home he had gone to the school to say good-bye to many friends. They had gathered about him with wonder and admiration. He had felt the difference now between himself and them, and had been filled with calm pride.

There was a dark-haired girl at whom he had gazed steadily, and he thought she grew sad at the sight of his blue uniform. As he had walked down the path between the rows of oaks, he had turned his head and seen her at a window watching his departure. He often thought of it.

On the way to Washington, his spirits had risen. The regiment was fed and praised at station after station, until the youth had believed that he must be a hero. As he enjoyed the smiles of the girls and was given attention by the old men, he had felt growing within him the strength to do splendid deeds.

After long journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of boring life in a camp. He had had the belief that real war was a series of death struggles with little time for sleep and meals. But since his regiment had come to the field, the army had done little but sit still and try to keep warm.

He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas. Struggles as in ancient times were ended. Men were either better or more fearful.

He had grown to regard himself merely as part of a vast blue display. His main job was to take care of his personal comfort as well as he could.

Now there was a more serious problem. He lay in his tent thinking about it. He tried to prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.

Before now, he had never felt obliged to consider too seriously this question. In his life he had accepted certain things, never doubting his belief in final success, and thinking little about methods. But here he was faced with an immediate situation. He had suddenly wondered if, perhaps, in a battle he might run. He was forced to admit that—in the matter of war—he knew nothing about himself.

He jumped from his bed and began to pace nervously back and forth. “Good Lord, what’s the matter with me?” he said aloud.

After a time the tall soldier came into the tent. He began to put some articles in his bag.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked at the busy figure. “Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?” he asked.

“Of course there is,” replied the tall soldier, whose name was Jim Conklin. “Of course there is. You just wait until tomorrow, and you’ll see one of the biggest battles that ever was. You just wait.”

“Do you really think so?” asked the youth.

“Oh, you’ll see fighting this time, my boy—real fighting,” added the tall soldier, with the manner of a man who is about to enact a battle for the benefit of his friends.

“Well,” remarked the youth, “this story will probably have the same result the others did.”

“No, it won’t,” replied the tall soldier. “No, it won’t.”

The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the tall soldier. “Jim!”

“What?”

“How do you think the regiment will do?”

“Oh, they’ll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into it,” said the other with cold judgment. “They’re new, of course, but they’ll fight all right, I guess.”

“Do you think any of the boys will run?” continued the youth.

“Oh, maybe a few of them will run, but there’s that kind in every regiment, especially when they first go under fire,” said the other in a kindly way.

“Of course it might happen that the whole regiment might start to run, if they met some big fighting at the beginning. Or they might stay and fight. But you can’t depend on anything. Of course they haven’t ever been under fire yet, and it’s not likely they’ll beat the whole rebel army in one battle. But I think they’ll fight better than some, and maybe worse than others. That’s the way I see it. Most of the boys will fight all right after they start shooting.” He placed great weight on the last four words.

“Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?” the youth asked. On completing the sentence he laughed as if he had meant it as a joke.

The tall soldier waved his hand. “Well,” he said seriously, “I’ve thought it might get too uncomfortable for Jim Conklin sometimes. If a lot of boys started to run, I suppose I’d start to run, too. And if I once started, I’d run like the devil. But if everybody were standing and fighting, well, I’d stand and fight, I would. I know I would!”

The youth felt grateful for these words of his companion. He had feared that all of the other men possessed a great confidence. He was now a little reassured.

Chapter 2

The next morning the youth discovered that his tall friend had been the fast-flying messenger of a mistake. There was much laughter at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm believers of his views. And there were even some remarks about his foolishness by men who had never believed his story. The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield Comers and beat him badly.

The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no way lifted from him. There was, in fact, a continuing worry. The story of coming battle had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with the question in his mind, he became again a part of the blue display.

For days he worried. He finally decided that there was only one way to prove himself: go into battle, and then watch his legs to discover their virtues and faults. To gain an answer he must have gunfire, blood and danger. So he waited eagerly for an opportunity.

Meanwhile he continually tried to measure himself by his companions. The tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance. This man’s calm unconcern gave him a measure of confidence, for he had known Jim Conklin since he, Henry Fleming, had been a child. Still, he thought that his friend might be mistaken about himself. Or, perhaps, Jim Conklin might be a man who had always lived in peace and privacy but was, in reality, made to shine in war.

The youth would have liked to have discovered another who doubted himself. A sharing of mental notes would have been a joy to him.

Then one morning the men were whispering and starting again the old reports. In the darkness before the break of day their uniforms glowed a deep purple color. From across the river the red eyes were still watching. In the eastern sky there was a yellow spot, like a rug put down for the feet of the coming sun.

From somewhere in the darkness came the sound of feet. The youth could occasionally see dark shadows that moved like huge devils. The regiment waited for what seemed a long time. The youth lost his patience. It was unbearable the way these affairs were managed. He wondered how long they were to be kept waiting.

At last he heard from along the road at the bottom of the hill the sound of a horse. It must be the coming of orders. He bent forward, scarcely breathing. Then a horseman stopped before the colonel of the regiment. The two held a short, sharp-worded conversation. The men in the front stretched their necks to see and hear.

As the horseman turned his animal and started away he shouted over his shoulder, “Don’t forget that box of tobacco.” The colonel murmured a reply. The youth wondered what a box of tobacco had to do with war.

A moment later the regiment went marching off into the darkness. The air was heavy and cold. The wet grass, marched upon, sounded like moving silk.

Soon they passed into a roadway and moved forward easily. A dark regiment moved in front of them, and from behind also came the sounds of marching men.

The rushing yellow of the developing day continued behind their backs. When the sun rays at last struck full upon the earth, the youth saw that the land was marked with two long, thin, black columns which disappeared over the top of a hill in front, and in the rear disappeared in a forest.

There was much discussion among the soldiers. The youth took no part. As he walked along in the careless line he was busy with his own personal problem. He could not stop himself from thinking about it. He was in low spirits and threw searching glances about him. He looked ahead, often expecting to hear the sound of shooting.

But the long lines moved slowly from hill to hill without a bit of smoke. The sky overhead was a lovely blue.

The youth studied the faces of his companions, ever watching to see emotions similar to his. He found none.

Considering himself as separated from the others, he was saddened by the light and merry speeches among the men. The regiment marched to the music of laughter.

At nightfall the column broke apart and went into the fields to camp. Tents grew up like strange plants. Campfires, like red flowers, lit the night.

The youth talked with his companions as little as possible. In the evening he wandered a few paces into the dark. From this little distance the many fires, with the black forms of men passing back and forth before the red rays, made strange and devilish effects.

He lay down in the grass and it pressed tenderly against his face. The moon seemed to be hung in a treetop. The liquid stillness of the night closing upon him made him feel vast pity for himself. There was a gentleness in the soft winds; and the whole feeling of darkness, he thought, was one of sympathy for himself in his sorrow.

He wished that he were home again, going from the house to the farmyard, from the farmyard to the fields, from the fields to the farmyard, from the farmyard to the house. He remembered he had often cursed the cows. But from his present point of view, there was a crown of happiness about each of their heads. He would have sacrificed all the uniforms on the continent to be able to return to them. He told himself that he was not made to be a soldier. And he thought seriously about the many differences between himself and those men who were moving around the fires.

He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the sleeping tall soldier. He stared at a fire’s red, shaking shadow on the white wall of his tent until, tired and ill from his continued suffering, he fell asleep.

Chapter 3

In the morning they were called out early, and hurried along a narrow road that led deep into the forest. It was during this rapid march that the regiment lost many of the marks of being new.

The men had begun to count the miles upon their fingers, and they grew tired. “Sore feet and not enough food, that’s all,” said a loud soldier. There were hot faces and angry words. After a time they began to throw away the bags they carried on their backs. Some dropped them unconcernedly down; others hid them carefully, planning to return for them at some convenient time. Men took off their thick shirts. Soon few carried anything but their necessary clothing, blankets, canteens, and guns. “You can now eat and shoot,” said the tall soldier to the youth. “That’s all you want to do.”

There was sudden change now among the men. The regiment was no longer the heavy, slow army of theory, but the light, speedy army of reality. The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new strength.

But the regiment did not yet have the appearance of experienced soldiers. Regiments who had been in battle were likely to be very small groups of men. And the letters on the flags were still new and beautiful. The youth returned to his theory that he was part of a blue display.

One gray dawn, however, the youth was kicked in the leg by the tall soldier. And then, before he was entirely awake, he found himself running down a forest road among men who were already breathing heavily from the first effects of speed. His canteen repeatedly struck his leg. His gun fell off his shoulder at each step, and his cap felt uncertain upon his head.

He could hear the men whisper broken sentences: “Say, what’s all this—about?” “What are we hurrying—this way for?” “Billie—stay off my feet—you run—like a cow.” And a soldier’s loud voice could be heard: “What the devil are they in such a hurry for?”

From a distance came a sudden sound of gunfire. He was surprised. As he ran with his friends he tried hard to think; but all he knew was that if he fell down those coming behind would step upon him. All his power seemed to be needed to guide him over and past objects. He felt carried along by a mob.

The sun spread revealing rays. And one by one, regiments burst into view like men just born of the earth. The youth realized that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment—facing his great test—he felt like a baby, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin. He seized time to look about him carefully.

He instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from the regiment. It enclosed him. And there were iron laws of custom and law on four sides. He was in a moving box.

As he realized this fact, he thought that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not joined the army by his own choice. He had been dragged by a merciless government. And now they were taking him out to be killed.

The regiment slipped down a hill and crossed a little stream. As they climbed a hill on the other side, guns began to roar. Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden curiosity. He hurried up to the top with a great speed.

He expected a battle scene.

There were some little fields surrounded by a forest. Spread over the grass and among the trees he could see moving lines of men running here and there and firing. A dark battle line lay upon a sunstruck clearing. A flag blew in the light wind.

Other regiments climbed up the hill. The brigade was formed in line of battle. After a pause the brigade started slowly through the forest, behind small groups of soldiers who melted into the scene to appear again farther forward. These were always busy as bees, deeply concerned in their little battles.

The youth tried to observe everything. He did not use care to avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were always striking against stones or getting caught in the low bushes. He saw that the figures ahead and their noises were red and shocking against the gentle land of softened greens and browns. It looked like the wrong place for a battlefield.

The fighters in front interested him. Their shots into bushes and at distant trees spoke to him of sorrows—hidden, secret.

Once the line of men came upon the body of a dead soldier. He lay upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an ugly suit of yellowish brown. The line opened to avoid the body. The dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked sharply at the ashen face. He wanted to walk around and around the body and stare; it was the desire of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question—the Question of Death.

During the march the eagerness which the youth had developed when out of view of the field rapidly reduced to nothing. His curiosity was quite easily satisfied. If an exciting scene had caught him with its wild action as he came to the top of the hill, he might have gone running forward. This advance upon Nature was too calm. He had opportunity to think. He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to question his feelings.

The quick thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were doing. Suddenly those close forests would reveal countless guns pointing at him. Iron-like enemy brigades would appear in the rear. He and his friends were all going to be killed. The generals were fools. The enemy would soon eat the whole army. His angry eyes searched about him, expecting to see the sure approach of his death.

The line, broken into moving parts by the ground, went calmly forward through fields and forests. The youth looked at the men nearest him. And he saw, mainly, expressions of deep interest, as if they were looking for something. Most of the men appeared quiet and thoughtful. They were going to look at war, the red animal—war, the blood-drinking god. And they were deeply occupied in this march.

The youth slowed his pace, with frightened glances at the sky. He was surprised by a young officer of his regiment—a lieutenant—who began to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud and unfriendly voice: “Come, young man, get on there. No falling behind here.” He changed his pace with proper speed. And he hated the lieutenant, who had no respect for fine minds. He was a mere animal.

After a time the brigade was stopped in the shady light of a forest. The busy fighters ahead were still shooting.

Many men in the regiment began piling tiny hills in front of them. They used stones, sticks, earth and anything they thought might protect them from a bullet. Some built quite large ones, while others seemed satisfied with little ones. In a short time there was quite a wall along the fronts of the regiments. Soon, however, they were ordered to leave that place.

This shocked the youth. He forgot his worries about the advance movement. “Well, then, why did they march us out here?” he demanded of the tall soldier. The latter, with calm faith, began a heavy explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little protection of stones and earth to which he had devoted much care and skill.

When the regiment was moved to another position, each man’s regard for his safety caused another line of small hills. The men ate their noon meal behind a third line of hills. They were moved from this one also. They were marched from place to place with apparent lack of purpose.

The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in a battle. He saw his preservation in such a change. Therefore, this waiting was painful to him. He had no patience. He considered that the generals lacked purpose. He began to complain to the tall soldier. “I can’t wait like this much longer,” he cried. “I don’t see what good it does to make us tire our legs for nothing.”

He wished to return to camp, knowing that this affair was only a blue display. Or he wanted to go into battle and discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a man of customary courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt to be unbearable.

The tall soldier ate his bread in a carefree manner. “Oh, I suppose we must go around the country just to keep them from getting too close, or to develop them, or something.”

“Well,” cried the youth, still nervous, “I’d rather do almost anything than march around all day doing no good to anyone and just tiring ourselves.”

In the afternoon the regiment went back over the same ground it had traveled in the morning. The land then ceased to threaten the youth. He had been close to it and become familiar with it. When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears came back.

Once he thought that it would be better to get killed immediately and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner of his eye, he knew it was nothing but rest. He was filled with a momentary surprise that he should have made a great problem over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die; he would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to expect respect from such men as the lieutenant. He must look to the grave for understanding.

The gunfire increased. With it was faraway cheering. Then the youth saw soldiers running. They were followed by more gunfire. After a time the hot, dangerous flashes of the rifles were seen. Smoke clouds went slowly across the fields. The noise grew into a roar.

A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action. It was as if it had burst apart. And thereafter it lay stretched in the distance, behind a long gray wall, at which one had to look twice to make sure that it was smoke.

The youth forgot his plan of getting killed. He stared speechlessly. His eyes grew wide with the action of the scene. His mouth was open a little.

Chapter 4

The noise in front grew to a mighty roar. The youth and his companions were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that whipped in the smoke angrily. Near it were moving forms of troops. There came a rushing stream of men across the fields. Another group, changing position at a fast pace, scattered them right and left.

Bullets began to whistle among the branches of the trees. Showers of pine needles and pieces of wood came falling down. It was as if a thousand axes were being used.

The lieutenant of the youth’s regiment was shot in the hand. He began to curse so magnificently that a nervous laugh went through the regiment. It relieved the tightened senses of the men.

The officer held his hand carefully away from his side so that the blood would not drop upon his trousers.

The captain of the regiment, putting his sword under his arm, produced a handkerchief and began to bind the lieutenant’s wound. And they argued about how the binding should be done.

The battle flag in the distance danced about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from a frightful pain. The clouds of smoke were filled with flashes.

Fast running men came through the smoke. They grew in numbers until it was seen that many brigades were running away. The flag suddenly sank down as if dying. Its motion as it fell was a movement of despair.

Wild shouts came from behind the walls of smoke. A mob of men rushed past like wild horses. The experienced regiments on the right and left of the youth’s regiment—the 304th—immediately began to call out bitter jokes. With the passionate song of the bullets and the bursts of gunfire were mixed loud remarks and bits of advice concerning places of safety.

But the new regiment was breathless with terror. The youth looked along the blue line of his regiment. The men were motionless, stone; and afterward he remembered that the flag bearer was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to be pushed to the ground.

The commander of the brigade was rushing around screaming. His horse often threatened the running men, but they escaped with unusual luck. In this rush they apparently could not hear or see. They paid no attention even to the largest and longest of the curses that were thrown at them from all directions.

Frequently, over this wild scene could be heard the jokes of the experienced soldiers. But the running men apparently were not even aware of this attention.

The battle look that shone for an instant on the faces in the mad current of men made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven could not hold him in place if he could get simple control of his legs.

The sight of this mad river had a floodlike force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground. But the youth and his regiment had to keep their place. They grew pale and firm, and red and shaking.

The youth accomplished one little thought in the middle of this madness. The frightful thing which had caused the other troops to run had not then appeared. He determined to get a view of it. And then, he thought he might very likely run better than the best of them.

Chapter 5

Then someone cried, “Here they come!”

There was movement and murmuring among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible bullet ready. Boxes were pulled around into different positions, and arranged with great care. It was as if seven hundred new hats were being tried on.

The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red handkerchief of some kind. He was putting it about his throat with careful attention when the shout was repeated up and down the line, “Here they come! Here they come!” Guns were made ready.

Across the smoky fields came a brown mass of running men who were giving loud screams. They came straight on, bent near the ground and swinging their rifles in all positions. A flag rushed along near the front.

As he caught sight of them, the youth was momentarily frightened by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying to remember the moment when he had loaded, but he could not.

A hatless general pulled his horse to a stop near the colonel of the 304th. He waved his hand in the colonel’s face. “You have to hold them back!”

The colonel answered nervously. “A-all r-right, General. All right, by God! W-we’ll do our—we’ll d-d-do—do our best, General.”

The general rode away. The colonel, perhaps to relieve his feelings, began to shout angrily at the men. The youth, turning quickly to make sure that it was safe behind, saw the colonel looking at his men with a bitter expression. He seemed to be sorry that he was associated with them.

The man at the youth’s elbow was murmuring, as if to himself:

“Oh, we’re in trouble now! Oh, we’re in trouble now!”

The captain of the regiment had been pacing excitedly back and forth in the rear. His talk was endlessly repeated. “Save your fire, boys— don’t shoot till I tell you—save your fire—wait till they get close— don’t be crazy fools—!”

The youth frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his arm. His mouth was still open a little.

He got the one glance at the enemy-filled field in front of him, and instantly stopped wondering if he had loaded his gun. Before he was ready to begin—before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight—he threw the rifle into position and fired a first wild shot. Suddenly he was working at his gun like an old soldier.

He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a threatening fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country— was in danger. He was melted into a united personality which was moved by a single desire. For some moments, he could not run away, no more than a little finger can revolt from a hand.

If he had thought the regiment was about to be destroyed, perhaps he could have cut himself away from it. But its noise gave him assurance. It roared and shot with a vast power.

There was an awareness always of the presence of his companions about him. He felt the battle fellowship, more powerful even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a strange fellowship born of the smoke and danger of death.

Soon he began to feel the effects of the war—a burning-up feeling; even his eyeballs felt like hot stones. And a burning roar filled his ears.

Following this came a red anger—like a worried animal, a well-meaning cow troubled by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and kill with his fingers. He wanted a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping motion and brush everything back. His lack of power became clear to him, and made his anger like that of a fenced beast.

Buried in the smoke of many rifles, his anger was directed not so much against the men who were rushing toward him, but against the waves of battle smoke that were pouring down his dry throat. He fought fiercely for relief for his senses, for air.

There was a fire of anger, mixed with a certain expression of purpose, on all faces. The tall soldier was cursing in a loud voice. Suddenly another shouted, “Well, why don’t they help us? Why don’t they send supports? Do they think—”

The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who is half-awake.

There was an absence of apparent heroes. The men bending and rising in their hurry and anger were in every impossible position. The steel rang out as the men ceaselessly employed the hot rifles. The rifles, when loaded, were pulled to the shoulders and fired without apparent aim into the smoke.

The officers neglected to stand in brave positions. They were leaping back and forth, roaring directions and encouragements. Often they nearly stood upon their heads in their eagerness to observe the enemy on the other side of the smoke clouds.

The lieutenant of the youth’s regiment had found a soldier who had run screaming at the first of the shooting. Behind the lines, these two were acting a little private scene. The man was crying and staring with sheepish eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the shirt and was hitting him. The lieutenant pushed him back among the rest with many blows. The soldier went dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a strength expressed in the voice of the other—hard, with no sign of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented him. The lieutenant had to assist him.

The men dropped here and there. The captain of the regiment had been killed in an early part of the action. His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face there was a surprised and sorrowful look, as if a friend had done something unkind to him.

The crying man was hit by a shot that made the blood stream widely down his face. He put both hands to his head. “Oh!” he said, and ran. Another screamed suddenly, as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. Farther up the line, a man standing behind a tree had his knee broken by a bullet. Immediately he dropped his rifle and grasped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, hanging despairingly and crying for help so that he might let go of the tree.

At last a joyful shout went along the trembling line. The firing fell from a roar to a single shot. As the smoke slowly cleared away, the youth saw that the enemy had been stopped. They were scattered into small groups. He saw a man climb to the top of the fence and fire a last shot.

Some in the regiment began to shout madly. Many were silent. Apparently they were trying to think of themselves.

And then, the youth thought that at last he was going to faint. He became aware of the bad air in which he had been struggling. He was dirty and wet from the labor and heat. He grasped his canteen and took a long drink of the warmed water.

A sentence was spoken up and down the line. “Well, we’ve held them back. We’ve held them back; so we have!” The men said it joyfully, looking at each other with dirty smiles.

The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds time in which to look about.

Under foot there were a few awful forms motionless. Arms were bent and heads were turned in unbelievable ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked as if they had been thrown out upon the ground from the sky.

A small line of wounded men was going slowly toward the rear. It was like a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade.

To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses extending in points from the forest. They suggested unnumbered thousands.

From a hill came the sound of cheering. Smoke rose slowly through the trees.

The guns were sounding with thundering effort. Here and there were flags, the red putting bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.

The youth felt the old excitement at the sight of the flags. They were like beautiful birds strangely untouched by a storm.

He listened to the noise from the hillside, to a deep steady thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser shots which came from many directions. And he realized that they were fighting, too— over there, and over there, and over there. Before, he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose.

As he gazed around him, the youth felt a flash of surprise at the blue, pure sky and the sun shining on the trees and fields. It was wonderful that Nature had gone quietly ahead with her golden process in the middle of so much devilment.

Chapter 6

The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually to a position from which he could regard himself. For moments he had been examining himself as if he had never before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground. He moved in his jacket to make it feel more comfortable, and kneeling, tied his shoe. He thoughtfully wiped his face.

So it was all over at last! The great test had been passed. The red frightful difficulties of war had been mastered.

He went into a passion of self-satisfaction. He had the most delightful emotions of his life. Standing as if apart from himself, he viewed that last scene. He thought that the man who had fought thus was magnificent.

He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself with those virtues which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled in deep pride.

Upon his companions he smiled with tenderness and good will. “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully to a man who was wiping his face with his arm.

“You’re right!” said the other, smiling sociably, “I’ve never seen such foolish hotness.” He lay down comfortably on the ground. “Oh, yes, and I hope we don’t have any more fighting till a week from Monday.”

There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose faces were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied hearts. He helped a cursing companion to bind a wound of the foot.

But, suddenly, cries of surprise broke out among the men of the new regiment. “Here they come again! Here they come again!” The man who had lain upon the ground started to get up and said, “Oh!”

The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He saw forms begin to come in masses out of a distant forest. He again saw the flag speeding forward.

The bullets, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came flying again, and struck the grass and the branches of the trees. The gunfire looked like strange war flowers bursting into fierce growth.

The men murmured. The glow left their eyes. Their dirty faces now expressed a deep sorrow. They moved their stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in quiet anger the fast approach of the enemy.

They complained each to the other. “Oh, this is too much! Why can’t somebody send us help?”

“We’re never going to live through a second battle. I didn’t come here to fight the whole rebel army.”

The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly stop, ask his pardon, and leave. It was all a mistake.

But the firing began somewhere in the line and ran along in both directions. The sheets of flame developed into great clouds of smoke that rose and dropped in the gentle wind near the ground, and then rolled through the line as through a gate. The clouds were colored an earth-like yellow in the sunlight, and in the shadows were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes lost in this mass of smoke, but more often it stood out, sun-touched, splendid.

Into the youth’s eyes there came a strange look. His neck was trembling with nervous weakness and the muscles of his arms felt stiff and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed large and useless. And there was a great uncertainty in his knees.

The words that companions had spoken before the firing began to come back to him. “Oh, this is too much!” “What do they think we are?” “Why don’t they send help?” “I didn’t come here to fight the whole rebel army.”

He slowly lifted his rifle and, seeing the field through the smoke, he fired. He stopped then and began to look as best he could through the smoke. He caught changing views of the ground covered with men who were all running like devils and shouting.

A man near him, who had been working feverishly at his rifle, suddenly stopped and ran, screaming. A lad whose face had worn an expression of high courage threw down his gun and ran. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.

Others began to run away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken by this movement as if the regiment were leaving him behind. He saw the quickly moving forms.

He shouted with fright and turned around. For a moment he was like a chicken. He lost the direction of safety. He was threatened from all points.

He began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His rifle and cap were gone. His open coat flew in the wind. The canteen was swinging out behind him. On his face was the terror of those things which he imagined.

He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he struck his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went down head first.

Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been greatly increased. Death about to strike him between the shoulders was much more awful than death about to hit him between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he got the impression that it is better to view the terror than merely to hear it. The noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself about to be crushed.

As he ran on he mixed with others. He saw men on his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him. He thought that the whole regiment was running away.

The sound of these following footsteps gave him his one small relief. He felt that death must first choose the men who were nearest it; they would be those who were following him. So he displayed the eagerness of a mad runner in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a race.

He experienced a shock when he came within view of a group of gunners in action. The men there seemed to be completely unaware of the coming danger. They were fighting with a distant enemy and were wrapped in admiration of their own shooting.

He saw a brigade going to the relief of tired soldiers. He climbed up a small hill and watched it moving, keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line was edged with steel color, and the bright flags shone. Officers were shouting.

This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying quickly, to be eaten by the mouths of the war god. What kind of men were they? Oh, they were some strange and wonderful sort! Or else they didn’t understand—the fools!

The youth went on, slowing his pace since he had left the place of noises.

Later he came upon a general seated upon a horse that lifted its ears in an interested way at the battle. The quiet man looked dull upon such a splendid animal.

A moment later the youth saw the general jump excitedly in his saddle.

“Yes, by heavens, they have!” The officer leaned forward. His face was aflame with excitement. “Yes, by heavens, they’ve held them! They’ve held them.”

He began to roar at the officers near him. “We’ll beat them now! We’ll beat them now! We’ve got them!”

The general’s face shone upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a desire to sing a song. He kept repeating, “They’ve stopped them, by heavens!”

His excitement made his horse jump forward, and the general merrily kicked and cursed at it. He did a little dance of joy on horseback.

Chapter 7

The youth lowered his head as if he had been discovered in a crime. They had won after all! The crazy line had remained firm and come to victory. He could hear cheering.

He stretched his neck and looked in the direction of the fight. A yellow cloud lay on the treetops. From beneath it came the sound of gunfire. Deep cries told of an advance.

He turned away, shocked and angry. He felt that he had been wronged.

He had run, he told himself, because certain death approached. He had done well in saving himself, because he was a little piece of the army. He had decided it was the duty of every piece to save itself if possible. Later the officers could fit the little pieces together again and make a battle line. If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from death at such a time, where would the army be?

It was all clear that he had proceeded according to very correct and admirable rules. His actions had been sensible—full of wisdom.

Thoughts of his companions came to him. The thin blue line had taken the blows and won. He grew bitter about it. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of wisdom. They had held the position when clever thinking would have shown them that it was impossible. He, the wise man who looks far into the darkness, had run away because of his superior mind. He felt a great anger against his companions. He knew it could be proved that they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp. His mind heard wild laughing. Their dull minds would not enable them to understand his sharper point of view.

He began to pity himself fiercely. He had been badly used. He was crushed beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom and sense, only to be defeated by hateful circumstances.

A dull, animal-like revolt against his companions, against war, against fate, grew within him. He walked along with his head down, his brain suffering and full of despair. When he looked up, trembling at each sound, his eyes had the expression of a criminal who thinks his guilt and punishment are great, and who can find no words.

He went from the fields into a thick forest, as if determined to bury himself. He wished to stop hearing the shots which were to him like voices.

After a time the sound of rifles grew faint, and the large guns roared in the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, shone among the trees.

The sound of death was far away. It seemed now that Nature had no ears. The scene gave him assurance. This was a place holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its calm eyes were compelled to see the blood. He believed Nature to be a woman with a deep unwillingness to see suffering.

Chapter 8

The trees began softly to sing a song of evening. The sun sank until dark orange rays struck the forest. There was silence except for the singing of the trees.

Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a vast burst of sounds. A roar came from the distance.

The youth stopped. He was turned to stone by this mixture of all noises. It was as if worlds were being torn apart. There was the tearing sound of rifles and the breaking thunder of great guns.

His mind flew in all directions. He pictured the two armies meeting each other. He listened for a while. Then he began to run in the direction of the battle. How strange to be running toward that which he had been so careful to avoid!

As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if at last becoming able to hear the foreign sounds. The trees stood quiet and motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to the earth-shaking thunder.

At last he was where he could see long gray walls of smoke. The voices of the guns shook him. The rifles sounded in long uneven bursts. He stood watching for a moment. His eyes had an expression of surprise. He stared in the direction of the fight.

Again he proceeded on his forward way. The battle was like the sound of a huge and awful machine to him. Its powers and processes interested him. He must go near and see it produce death.

He came to a fence and climbed over it. On the far side, the ground was covered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded, lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther away there was a group of four or five other bodies. A hot sun had burned upon the spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an outsider. This forgotten part of the battleground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried with the crazy fear that one of the bloody forms would rise and tell him to go.

He came finally to a road from which he could see troops moving in the distance. Below him was a blood-spotted crowd dragging itself forward. The wounded men were cursing, shouting, and weeping. In the air, always, was a mighty roar that seemed to move the earth. With the brave words of the big guns and the cruel sentences of the small guns, cheers were mixed. And out of this region of noises came the steady flow of the wounded.

One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He jumped along like a schoolboy in a game. He was laughing crazily.

One was insisting that he had been shot in the arm because of the commanding general’s bad management of the army. One was marching grandly, and upon his face was a mixture of merriment and suffering. He was singing a bit of a song in a high and trembling voice.

Another had the gray look of death already upon his face. His lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were pressed together tightly. His hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he would fall forward. He walked along, his eyes staring into the unknown.

There were some who proceeded full of anger at their wounds, ready to attack anything as a cause.

An officer was carried along by two soldiers. He was hurt. “Don’t be so rough, Johnson, you fool,” he cried. “Do you think my leg is made of iron? If you can’t carry me properly, put me down and let someone else do it.”

He shouted at the men in his path, “Make way there, can’t you? Make way!”

They slowly parted and went to the sides of the road. As he was carried past they made bitter remarks to him. When he shouted angrily in reply and threatened them, they cursed him.

The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been caught.

The march was continually broken into by messengers, and sometimes by hurrying brigades that came quickly upon them, with officers shouting orders to clear the way.

There was a tattered man, covered with dust and blood from hair to shoes, who walked quietly at the youth’s side. He was listening humbly and with eagerness to the stories of another soldier. The tattered man’s face wore an expression of admiration. He looked with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was open like a small boy’s.

The other soldier, seeing this, remarked, “Be careful, fellow, or you’ll be catching bees.”

The tattered man moved back.

After a while he began to approach the youth, and in a different way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle, and his eyes appealing. The youth saw with surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a bloody cloth, and the other in the arm, making it hang like a broken branch.

After they had walked together for some time the tattered man gathered sufficient courage to speak. “It was a good fight, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly. The youth, deep in thought, glanced at the bloody and sad figure with its lamblike eyes. “What?”

“It was a good fight, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.

But the other came speedily after him. He apparently thought that he needed only to talk for a time, and the youth would realize that he was a good fellow.

“It was a good fight, wasn’t it?” he began in a small voice, and then he gained the strength to continue. “I never saw fellows fight like that. How they did fight! I knew the boys would like it when they once started. The boys haven’t had a fair chance up to now, but this time they showed what they could do. I knew it would happen this way. You can’t beat those boys. No, sir! They’re fighters, they are.”

He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at the youth for encouragement several times. He received none, but gradually he seemed to get interested in his subject.

“I was talking once with a rebel boy from Georgia. We were doing night guard duty on opposite sides of a stream. Well, that boy, he said, ‘Your fellows will all start running when they first hear a gun.’ ‘Maybe they will,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think so.’ And I said, ‘Maybe your fellows will all start running when they first hear a gun.’” And the dusty man laughed. “Well, our boys didn’t run today, did they? No, sir! They fought and fought and fought.”

His tired face was filled with a light of love for the army which was to him all things beautiful and powerful.

After a time he turned to the youth. “Where were you hit, old boy?” he asked in a brotherly tone.

The youth felt instant terror at this question, although at first its full importance did not enter his mind.

“What?” he asked.

“Where were you hit?” repeated the tattered man.

“Oh,” began the youth, “I—I—that is—oh—”

He turned away suddenly and slipped through the crowd. His face was red and his fingers were moving nervously at one of his buttons. He bent his head and studied the button as if it were a little problem.

The tattered man looked after him in surprise.

Chapter 9

The youth fell back in the line until the tattered soldier was not in sight. Then he started to walk along with the others.

But he was among wounds. Blood was flowing from the mob of men. Because of the tattered soldier’s question he now felt that his shame could be viewed. He was continually glancing around to see if the men were looking at his guilt.

At times he wished he were wounded. He believed persons with torn bodies were unusually happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound—a red badge of courage.

The dying soldier he had passed earlier was now at his side. The man’s eyes were still staring into the unknown. His gray, frightening face had drawn attention in the crowd. The men, slowing to his pace, were walking with him. They were discussing his wound, questioning him and giving him advice. He refused their help, telling them to go and leave him alone. The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed to hold inside the cry of great despair. There was a stiffness in the movements of his body. As he went along, he seemed always looking for a certain place, like one who goes to choose a grave.

Something in the manner of the man as he waved away the bloody and pitying soldiers made the youth scream in terror. Hurrying forward, he laid a trembling hand upon the man’s arm. As the latter slowly turned his pale face toward him, the youth cried:

“God! Jim Conklin!”

The tall soldier made a little smile. “Hello, Henry,” he said.

The youth stopped and stared strangely. He finally spoke: “Oh, Jim—oh, Jim—oh, Jim—”

The tall soldier held out his bloody hand. There was a strange black and red combination of old and new blood upon it. “Where have you been, Henry?” he asked. He continued in a dull voice, “I thought maybe you got killed. Today has been a bad one. I was worrying about it.

The youth still cried sadly, “Oh, Jim—oh, Jim—oh, Jim—”

“You know,” said the tall soldier, “I was out there.” He made a careful movement. “And Lord, what a show. And I got shot—I got shot. Yes, I got shot.” He repeated this fact in a surprised way, as if he did not know how it happened.

The youth put forth anxious arms to help him, but the tall soldier went firmly on as if moved by another force. Since the youth’s arrival as a support for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display much interest. They occupied themselves again in dragging their own sorrows along.

Suddenly, as the two friends walked, the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a terror. His face turned ashen. He grasped the youth’s arm and looked all about him, as if fearing he would be heard by the others. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:

“I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of, Henry—I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid I’ll fall down—and then you know—those heavy wagons—they will run over me. That’s what I’m afraid of—”

The youth cried out to him excitedly, “I’ll take care of you, Jim! I’ll take care of you! I promise to God I will!”

“Will you, Henry?” the tall soldier begged.

“Yes—yes—I tell you—I’ll take care of you, Jim!” spoke the youth. He could not speak correctly because his heart seemed to be filling his throat.

But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung to the youth’s arm like a child. His eyes rolled in the wildness of his terror. “I was always a good friend to you, wasn’t I, Henry? I’ve always been a good fellow, haven’t I? And it isn’t much to ask, is it? Just to pull me out of the road? I’d do it for you, wouldn’t I, Henry?”

He paused in pitiful fear to await his friend’s reply.

The youth had reached a state of sorrow where his tears burned him. He tried to express the depth of his feeling, but he could only make strange motions.

However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He became again the determined and awful sight he had been. He went forward. The youth wanted his friend to lean upon him, but the other always shook his head and strangely protested. “No—no—no— leave me alone—leave me alone—”

His look stared again upon the unknown. He moved with unknowable purpose, and all of the youth’s offers he brushed aside. “No—no—leave me alone—leave me alone—”

The youth had to follow.

After a while he heard a voice talking softly near his shoulder. Turning, he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. “You ought to take him out of the road, son. There’s a regiment coming down the road fast, and he’ll get run over. He’s not going to live more than about five minutes—you can see that. You ought to take him out of the road. Where does he get his strength from?”

“Lord knows,” cried the youth. He was shaking his hands helplessly.

He ran forward then and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. “Jim. Jim!” he begged, “come with me.”

The tall soldier weakly tried to pull himself free. “Huh,” he said, emptily. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if with a shadow of understanding. “Oh! Into the fields? Oh!”

He stared blindly through the grass.

The youth turned once to look at the riders and guns of the regiment. He was pulled from this view by a sharp cry from the tattered man.

“God! He’s running.”

Turning his head quickly, the youth saw his friend running and falling toward some little bushes. The boy’s heart seemed to tear itself free from his body at this sight. He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began to follow.

When he came to the tall soldier he began to beg with all the words he could find. “Jim—Jim—what are you doing—what makes you do this—you’ll hurt yourself.”

The same purpose was in the tall soldier’s face. He protested in a dulled way, keeping his eyes on the unknown place of his determination. “No—no—don’t touch me—leave me alone—leave me alone—”

The youth, shocked and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began fearfully to question him. “Where are you going, Jim? What are you thinking about? Where are you going? Tell me, won’t you, Jim?”

The tall soldier turned around. In his eyes there was a great appeal. “Leave me, can’t you? Leave me alone for a minute.”

The youth drew back. “Why, Jim,” he said, in a blind way, “what’s the matter with you?”

The tall soldier turned and struggling dangerously, went forward. The youth and the tattered soldier followed, as fearful as if they had been whipped, feeling unable to face the wounded man if he should again turn on them. They began to have thoughts of a holy affair. There was something in these movements of the dying soldier like a mad religion. They were afraid. They held back as if he might use, if he wished it, an awful power.

At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hurrying to him, they saw that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last found the place for which he had struggled. His thin figure was straight; his bloody hands were quietly at his side. He was waiting with patience for something that he had come to meet. He was at the place. They paused and stood, expectant.

There was a silence.

Finally, the chest of the dying soldier began to lift with a strained motion. It increased in force until it was as if an animal were within and kicking fiercely to be free.

This sight of gradual death made the youth breathless. And once, as his friend rolled his eyes, the boy saw something in them that made him sink crying to the ground. He raised his voice in a last call.

“Jim—Jim—Jim—”

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a motion. “Leave me—don’t touch me—leave me—”

There was another silence while he waited.

Suddenly his form stiffened and straightened. Then it shook strangely. He stared into space. To the two watchers there was a strange and vast dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.

He was attacked by a gradual strangeness that slowly filled him. For a moment the shaking of his legs caused him to dance a sort of awful dance. His arms beat wildly about his head in an expression of devilish delight.

His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight tearing sound. Then he began to fall forward, slow and straight, in the manner of a falling tree. The left shoulder struck the ground first.

“God!” said the tattered soldier.

The youth had watched, unable to move. His face had expressed every suffering he had imagined for his friend.

He now jumped to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the gray face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.

As the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see that the man’s side looked as if it had been eaten away by a wolf.

The youth turned, with sudden burning anger toward the battlefield. He seemed about to deliver a speech.

“Hell—”

The red sun shone in the sky.

Chapter 10

The tattered man stood thinking.

“Well, he had a lot of spirit, didn’t he?” he said finally in a small, surprised voice. “A lot of spirit.” He thoughtfully moved one of the lifeless hands with his foot. “I wonder where he got his strength from. I never saw a man do anything like that before. It was a strange thing. Well, he had a lot of spirit.”

The youth wanted to scream out his grief, but his tongue lay dead in his mouth. He threw himself again upon the ground in sorrow.

The tattered man stood thinking.

“Look here,” he said, after a time. He gazed at the body as he spoke. “He’s gone, isn’t he, and we might as well begin to think about ourselves. This is all over. He’s gone, isn’t he? And he’s safe here. Nobody will touch him. And I must say I’m not enjoying any great health myself these days.”

The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier’s tone of voice, looked up quickly. He saw that the man was standing unsteadily on his legs and that his face had become a kind of blue.

“Good Lord!” the youth cried, “you’re not going to—not you, too?”

The tattered man waved his hand. “Not die,” he said. “All I want is some soup and a good bed. Some soup,” he repeated dreamily.

The youth arose from the ground. “I wonder where he came from. I left him over there.” He pointed. “And now I find him here. And he was coming from over there, too.” He indicated a new direction. They both turned toward the body as if to ask it a question.

“Well,” the tattered man spoke at last, “there isn’t any use in our staying here and trying to ask him anything.”

The youth nodded an agreement. They both turned to gaze for a moment at the body.

The youth murmured something.

“Well, he was quite a fellow, wasn’t he?” said the tattered man as if in answer.

They turned their backs and started to walk away.

“I’m beginning to feel very bad,” said the tattered man, suddenly breaking one of his little silences. “I’m beginning to feel very bad.”

The youth said, “Oh Lord!” He wondered if he were to be the suffering witness of another death.

But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. “Oh, I’m not going to die yet! There’s too much depending on me for me to die yet. No, sir! Not die! I can’t! You ought to see the children I’ve got at home.”

The youth glanced at his companion and could see by the shadow of a smile that he was making some kind of fun.

As they walked heavily along, the man continued to talk. “Besides, if I died, I wouldn’t die the way that fellow did. That was the strangest thing. I’d just lie down, I would. I never saw a fellow die the way that fellow did.”

The tattered soldier continued. “Tom Jamison lives next to my house at home. He’s a nice fellow, he is, and we were always good friends. He’s clever, too. Well, when we were fighting this afternoon, all of a sudden he began to curse and scream at me. ‘You’re shot!’ he screamed.

“I put my hand to my head and when I looked at my fingers, I saw, sure enough, I was shot. I gave a shout and began to run, but before I could get away another one hit me in the arm and turned me all the way around. They were all shooting behind me and I ran. I think I’d be fighting still, if Tom Jamison hadn’t told me I was shot.”

Then he made a calm announcement. “I don’t believe I can walk much farther.”

They went slowly along in silence. “You look quite bad yourself,” said the tattered man at last. “I think you’ve got a worse wound than you think. You ought to take care of your hurt. Where is it located?” But he continued talking without waiting for a reply.

“I saw a fellow get hit in the head once,” the tattered soldier said. “And everybody shouted out to him, ‘Hurt, John? Are you hurt much?’ ‘No,’ he said. He looked surprised, and he kept telling them how he felt. He said he didn’t feel anything. But, by God, the next thing that fellow knew, he was dead. Yes, he was dead—stone dead. So, you want to be careful. You might have some queer kind of hurt yourself. You can’t ever tell. Where is yours located?”

The youth had been uncomfortable since the beginning of the subject. He now gave a cry of impatience and made an angry motion with his hand. “Oh, don’t talk to me!” he said. He was angered at the tattered man, and could have killed him. His companions seemed always to play unbearable parts. They were ever upraising the shadow of shame on the stick of their curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man. “Now, don’t talk to me,” he repeated with a despairing threat.

“Well, Lord knows I don’t want to worry anybody,” said the other. There was a little tone of despair in his voice, too, as he replied, “Lord knows I’ve got enough problems of my own to think of.”

The youth, who had been having a bitter argument with himself, here spoke in a hard voice. “Goodbye,” he said.

The tattered man looked at him with complete surprise. “Why, friend, where are you going?” he asked unsteadily. The youth, looking at him, could see that he, too, like the other one, was beginning to act dull and animal-like. His thoughts seemed to be jumping about in his head.

The other was speaking in a trembling voice. “Now—now—look here, you Tom Jamison—now—I won’t allow this—this isn’t right. Where—where are you going?”

The youth pointed distantly. “Over there,” he replied.

“Well, now, look here,” said the tattered man, talking in a crazy way. His head was hanging forward and his words were pushed together. “This isn’t right, now, Tom Jamison. This isn’t right. It’s not right— for you—to go away with a bad hurt. It’s not—not—right—it’s not.”

In reply, the youth climbed a fence and started away. He could hear the man begging.

Once he turned angrily, “What?”

“Look—here, now, Jamison—now—it’s not—”

The youth kept going. Turning at a distance, he saw the tattered man wandering about helplessly in the field.

He now thought that he wished he were dead. He believed that he wished to be one of those men whose bodies lay spread over the grass of the fields and among the trees of the forest.

The simple questions of the tattered man had been like knives cutting into him. They showed a society that digs pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent. His companion’s steady questions made him feel that he could not keep his crime hidden in his heart. It was sure to be uncovered by one of those who are always finding those things which are meant to be forever hidden. He admitted that he could not defend himself against this. It was not within his power.

Chapter 11

He climbed a little hill, he saw that the road was now a crying mass of wagons, horses and men. Fear was pushing it all along. The youth felt a bit comforted by this sight. They were all moving back. Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all. He seated himself and watched the terror-filled wagons. They were running away like soft, heavy animals.

Soon a forward-going column of marching soldiers appeared in the road. It came quickly. The commands to get out its way had the sound of great importance in them. The men were going forward to the heart of the noise. They were to meet the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of their onward movement when the rest of the army was trying to escape down this road. They pushed aside wagons with an attitude that nothing mattered as long as their column got to the battle in time. This importance made their faces serious. And the backs of the officers were very straight.

As the youth looked at them, the black weight of his worry returned to him. He felt that he was regarding a line of finer beings. The separation between himself and them was as great to him as if they had marched with guns of flame and flags of sunlight. He could never be like them. He wanted to cry because he wanted so much to become better than he was.

Also, varied ills had begun to cry out. In their presence he could not continue his desire to fly high on the wings of war. They made it almost impossible for him to imagine himself as a hero. He fell.

He discovered that he had an awful need for water. His face was so dry and dirty that he thought he could feel his skin break open. Each bone of his body hurt, and seemed to threaten to break with every movement. His feet were like two sores. Also, his body was calling for food. It was more powerful than direct hunger. There was a dull, weight-like feeling in his stomach, and, when he tried to walk, his head seemed to swim. He could not see well. Small spots of green floated before his eyes.

While he had been experiencing many emotions, he had not been aware of his hurts. Now he was at last compelled to give attention to them, and his self-hate was increased. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now admitted that it was impossible for him ever to become a hero. He was a fool. Those pictures of glory were pitiful things. He murmured from his heart and moved away.

A certain desire within him kept him in the area of the battle. He wanted to see, and to get news. He wished to know who was winning.

Again he thought that he wished he were dead. Thinking of the dead, he made himself feel very angry at some of the dead men, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless. They might have been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had had opportunities to run away, or before they had been really tested. But they would be praised for bravery. He cried out bitterly that they had stolen their crowns, and their robes of glory were false. However, he still said that it was a great pity that he was not as they were.

When he thought again that it was not possible for the army to be defeated, he tried to think of a fine tale which he could take back to his regiment. With it he could avoid the anger he expected to receive.

But it became impossible for him to invent a tale he felt he could trust. He thought of many, but put them out of his mind, one by one, as no good. He was quick to see the weak places in them all.

Also, he was much afraid that some unkind remark might strike him mentally low before he could tell his protecting tale.

He imagined the whole regiment saying: “Where’s Henry Fleming? He ran, didn’t he? That’s awful!” He thought of several persons who would be quite sure to give him no peace about it. They would doubtless question him and laugh at his slow hesitation. In the next battle they would watch him to see when he would run.

Wherever he would go, angry and cruel stares would follow him. As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of companions, someone would say, “There he goes!”

Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces would turn toward him with wide, knowing smiles. He seemed to hear someone make a joke in a low voice. At it, all the others would laugh and laugh.

Chapter 12

The column of soldiers that had raced along the road were hardly out of the youth’s sight before he saw dark groups of men come rushing out of the forest and down through the fields. They were bursting from their coats, throwing away their things. They came upon him like frightened cattle.

The youth was filled with terror. He stared in pain and wonder. The fight was lost. The army was going to be eaten. War, the red animal—war, the blood-drinking god—would have what it wanted.

Within him something wanted to cry out. He had the desire to make a speech, to shout, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air: “Why—why—what—what’s the matter?”

Soon he was in the middle of the mob. They were leaping and running all about him. Their pale faces shone in the weakening sunlight. They seemed, most of them, to be very big men. The youth turned from one to another of them as they came along. His senseless questions were not heard. The men gave no attention to his appeals. They did not seem to see him.

The youth, after rushing about and asking questions, finally caught a man by the arm. They swung around face to face.

“Why—why—” started the youth, struggling with his tongue.

The man screamed, “Let me go! Let me go!” His face was ashy pale and his eyes were rolling uncontrolled. He was breathing with difficulty. He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to let go of it. He pulled away, and the youth was dragged several paces.

“Let me go! Let me go!”

“Why—why—” repeated the youth.

“No!” shouted the man. In his mad anger he fiercely swung his rifle. It crushed upon the youth’s head; The man ran away.

The youth’s fingers had turned to water upon the other’s arm. The energy was struck from his muscles. He saw flaming wings of lightning flash before his eyes; There was a vast roar of thunder within his head.

Suddenly his legs seemed to die. He sank to the ground. He tried to get up. In his efforts against the pain he was like a man fighting with a creature made of air. There was a cruel struggle.

At last, with a forceful movement, he got upon his hands and knees, and from there, like a baby trying to walk, to his feet. Pressing his hands to his head, he went, struggling to stay straight, over the grass. He went like the tall soldier.

Once he put his hand to the top of his head and carefully touched the wound. The sudden pain made him draw a long breath through his teeth. His fingers were covered with blood. He regarded them with a glassy stare.

He hurried on. The day had turned to darkness and he could hardly see where to put his feet.

His wound now pained him very little. He was afraid to move rapidly, however, for fear of hurting it. He held his head very still and took great care not to fall. He was filled with worry and fear that any sudden mistake of his feet in the dark would bring more pain.

His thoughts, as he walked, were completely upon his hurt. There was a cool, liquid feeling about it and he imagined blood moving slowly down under his hair. His head seemed to be swelling to a size that made him think his neck would be too small.

He began to think about things of the past. He thought of certain meals his mother had cooked at home, in which foods he particularly liked had been served. He saw the loaded table. The pine walls of the kitchen glowed in the warm light from the stove. Also, he remembered how he and his friends would go from the schoolhouse to a shaded pool. He saw his clothes thrown upon the grass. He felt the waves of the water upon his body. The branches of the overhanging trees softly sang in the wind of youthful summer.

Then he was overcome by a dragging weakness. His head hung forward and his shoulders were bent as if he were carrying a great burden. His feet slowly dragged along the ground.

He argued with himself about whether he should lie down and sleep or force himself to keep going.

At last he heard a cheerful voice near his shoulder: “You seem to be in a bad way, boy!”

The youth did not look up, but he agreed with thick tongue. “Uh!”

The owner of the cheerful voice took him firmly by the arm. “Well,” he said, with a gay laugh, “I’m going your way. The whole crowd is going your way. And I guess I can help you a bit.” They began to walk along like a drunken man and his friend.

As they went along, the man questioned the youth and helped him with replies, like one managing the mind of a child. Sometimes he told stories.

“What regiment do you belong to? What’s that? The 304th? I thought they weren’t fighting today— Oh, they were? Well, almost everybody got their share of fighting today. I thought I was dead any number of times. There was shooting here and shooting there and shouting here and shouting there, in the darkness, until I couldn’t tell which army I was with. It was the most mixed-up thing I ever saw, in these forests. It will be a wonder if we find our regiments. There they go with an officer, I guess. Look at his head dragging. He’s had all the war he wants, I imagine. I hope we can find our regiments tonight. It’s not going to be easy. But I guess we can do it.”

In the search that followed, the man with the cheerful voice seemed to possess a magic way of doing things. He came through the forest with strange luck.

The forest seemed filled with men running about in circles, but the cheerful man led the youth without mistake until at last he began to laugh with joy and self-satisfaction. “Oh, there you are! See that fire?”

The youth nodded.

“Well, that’s where your regiment is. And now, goodbye. Good luck to you.”

A warm, strong hand took the youth’s weak fingers for an instant, and then the boy heard a cheerful whistling as the man walked away. As he who had been so kind to him was thus passing out of his life, the youth suddenly realized that he had not once seen his face.

Chapter 13

The youth went slowly toward the fire indicated by his departed friend. As he went, he thought of the welcome his former companions would give him. He was sure they would laugh at him. He had no strength to invent a tale; it would be an easy victory for them.

He wanted to go into the darkness and hide, but his ills forced him to seek the place of food and rest, at whatever cost.

He swung unsteadily toward the fire. He could see the forms of men making black shadows in the red light. As he went nearer he saw that the ground was covered with sleeping men.

Suddenly he met a black figure, aiming a rifle. “Stop there!” He was surprised for a moment, but he thought that he recognized the voice—nervous now—of the loud soldier. As he stood trembling before the rifle, he called out: “Hello, Wilson, you—you here?”

The rifle was lowered to a careful position, and the soldier came slowly forward. He looked into the youth’s face. “Is that you, Henry?”

“Yes, it’s—it’s me.”

“Well, well, old boy,” said the other, “well, I’m glad to see you! I thought you were dead.” There was real emotion in his voice.

The youth found that now he could hardly stand upon his feet. There was a sudden sinking of his strength. He felt he must hurry with his tale to protect himself. So, before the soldier said anything more, he began:

“Yes, yes. I’ve—I’ve had an awful time. I’ve been all over. Far over on the right. Awful fighting over there. I had a frightful time. I got separated from the regiment. Over on the right, I got shot. In the head. I never saw such fighting. Awful time. I don’t see how I got separated from the regiment. I got shot, too.”

His friend had stepped forward quickly. “What? Got shot? Why didn’t you say so first? Poor fellow, we must—wait a minute—I’ll call Simpson.”

At that moment another soldier appeared. “Who are you talking to, Wilson?” he demanded. His voice was angry. “Who are you talking to?—Oh, hello, Henry, are you here? Well, I thought you were dead four hours ago! Great heavens, they keep coming in every ten minutes! We thought we’d lost forty-two men, but if they keep coming this way, we’ll have the whole regiment back by morning. Where were you?”

“Over on the right. I got separated—” began the youth.

But his friend had interrupted. “Yes, and he got shot in the head, and we must help him right away.”

He rested his rifle on his left arm and put his right around the youth’s shoulder.

“It must hurt bad!” he said.

The youth leaned heavily upon his friend. “Yes, it hurts—hurts a lot,” he replied. There was a shaking in his voice.

“Oh,” said the second soldier. He put his arm around the youth and led him forward. “Come on, Henry. I’ll take care of you.”

As they went together, Wilson called out after them: “Put him to sleep in my blanket, Simpson. And—wait—here’s my canteen. It’s full of coffee. Look at his head by the fire and see how it is. Maybe it’s a bad wound. When someone else comes to take guard duty, I’ll be over to see him.”

The youth’s senses were so deadened that his friend’s voice sounded from afar and he could hardly feel the support of Simpson’s arm. His head was hanging forward upon his breast. His knees shook.

Simpson led him to the light of the fire. “Now, Henry,” he said, “let’s have a look at your head.”

The youth obeyed and sat down, and the other, laying aside his rifle, began to look into the bushy hair of his companion. He had to turn the youth’s head so that the full glow of the fire light, would shine on it. He whistled through his teeth when his fingers found the blood and the unusual wound.

“Ah, here we are!” he said. He anxiously searched further. “Just as I thought,” he added after a while. “You’ve been brushed by a bullet. It’s raised a queer swelling, as if some fellow had hit you on the head with a club. The blood stopped flowing a long time ago. The worst about it is that in the morning you’ll feel as if the world’s biggest hat wouldn’t fit you. And you may get a lot of other sicknesses, too, by morning. Still, I don’t think so. It’s just a bad hit on the head and nothing more. Now, you just sit here and don’t move. I’ll send Wilson to take care of you.”

Simpson went away. The youth remained on the ground. He stared with an empty look into the fire.

Within the glow of red and orange light from the burning sticks were other soldiers, breathing heavily, or lying deathlike in sleep. A few pairs of legs were spread out, stiff and straight. The shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches.

The youth sat in a sorrowful position until his friend, Wilson, came, carrying two canteens. “Well, now, Henry, we’ll have you fixed in just about a minute.”

He had the busy manner of a new nurse. He moved around the fire and stirred the sticks. He made his patient drink from the canteen that contained the coffee. It was to the youth a delightful drink. He put his head far back and held the canteen long to his lips. The cool liquid went smoothly down his hot throat. Having finished, he sighed with comfortable delight.

Wilson watched his companion with a look of satisfaction. He later produced a huge handkerchief from his pocket. He folded it and poured water from the other canteen onto it. This he bound over the youth’s head, tying the ends in a queer arrangement at the back of the neck.

“There,” he said, moving off and studying his deed, “you look like the devil, but I guess you feel better.”

The youth looked at his friend with grateful eyes. Upon his paining and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman’s hand.

“You don’t scream or say anything,” remarked his friend admiringly. “You’re a good one, Henry. Most men would have been in the hospital long ago. A shot in the head is no joking matter.”

The youth made no reply, but began to play with the buttons of his jacket.

“Well, come now,” continued his friend, “come now. I must put you to bed and see that you get a good night’s rest.”

The other stood up carefully, and the young soldier led him among the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows. Finally Wilson bent and picked up his blankets. He spread the rubber one upon the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth’s shoulders.

“There now,” he said, “lie down and get some sleep.”

The youth, obeying quietly, got carefully down. He stretched out with a murmur of relief and comfort. The ground felt like the softest bed.

But suddenly he said, “Wait a minute. Where are you going to sleep?”

His friend waved his hand impatiently. “Right down there next to you.”

“Well, but wait—” continued the youth. “What are you going to sleep on? I’ve got your—”

The young soldier answered: “Be quiet and go to sleep. Don’t be making a fool of yourself,” he said firmly.

After this the youth said no more. A wonderful sleepiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket surrounded him. His head fell forward and his arm and his eyes slowly closed. Hearing guns from the distance, he wondered—not really caring—if those men sometimes slept. He gave a long sigh, curled into his blanket, and in a moment was like his companions.

Chapter 14

When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years. He felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. A splendid dawn could be seen in the eastern sky. The night air had made his face cold, and immediately upon awakening he moved further down into his blankets. He stared for a while at the branches overhead, moving in the wind of the day.

The distance was filled with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly continuance, as if it had not begun and was not to cease.

About him were the groups of men that he had seen in the shadows the night before. They were getting a last bit of sleep before the awakening.

He heard then the noise of wood burning in the cold air, and turning his head, he saw his friend busy about a small fire. A few other figures were moving, and he heard the hard sound of ax blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow noise of drums. A distant horn sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far over the front. The horns called to each other.

The groups of men in the forest moved. There was a general up lifting of heads. A murmuring of voices filled the air.

The youth sat up. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand felt carefully of the cloth over his wound. His friend, seeing him awake, came from the fire. “Well, Henry, old man, how do you feel this morning?” he demanded.

The youth sighed again. In truth, his head felt like a big ball, and there was an unpleasant feeling in his stomach.

“I feel pretty bad,” he said.

“Sorry!” exclaimed the other. “I hoped you’d feel all right this morning. Let’s see the handkerchief—I guess it’s slipped.” He began to look at the wound in rather a rough way until the youth spoke sharply.

“Why can’t you be more easy?” he said angrily. “I’d rather have you stand back and throw guns at it. Now go slow, and don’t act as if you were nailing down rugs.”

His friend answered softly, “Well, well, come now, and get some food. Then, maybe, you’ll feel better.”

At the fireside, the young soldier took care of his friend’s needs with tenderness and care. He sat down and watched, with pleasure, the youth’s eager mouthfuls.

The youth noticed a remarkable change in his friend since those earlier days of camp life. Wilson no longer seemed to be continually regarding the greatness of his virtues. He was not angry at small words that cut into his self-satisfaction and pride. He was no more a loud young soldier. There was about him now a fine inner strength. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his qualities. And this inner sureness apparently enabled him to give no attention to little words of other men aimed at him.

The youth thought. He had always regarded his companion as a loud child, with a careless daring grown from his inexperience; thoughtless, demanding, and filled with a false courage. The youth wondered where those new eyes had been born; when his companion had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be commanded by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a mountain of wisdom, from which he could see himself as a very tiny thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live with his friend as a neighbor.

His companion balanced his coffee-cup on his knee. “Well, Henry,” he said, “what do you think our chances are? Do you think we’ll beat them?”

The youth considered for a moment. “Day before yesterday,” he finally replied, with daring, “you would have said you could beat the whole rebel army by yourself.”

His friend looked surprised. “Would I?” he asked. He thought. “Well, perhaps I would,” he decided at last. He stared humbly at the fire.

The youth was quite shocked at this unusual reply to his remarks. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t really,” he said quickly trying to undo what he had done.

But the other made a small motion. “Oh, never mind Henry,” he said. “I believe I was quite a fool in those days.” He spoke as though many years had passed.

There was a little pause.

“All the officers say we’re going to win,” said Wilson. “They seem to think we’ve got the rebels just where we want them.”

“I don’t know about that,” the youth replied. “What I saw over on the right makes me think it was the opposite. From where I was, it looked as if we were getting a good beating yesterday.”

“Do you think so?” inquired the friend. “I thought we were beating them yesterday.”

“Not a bit!” said the youth. “Man, you didn’t see any thing of the fight!” Then a sudden thought came to him. “Jim Conklin is dead.”

His friend was shocked. “What? Is he? Jim Conklin!”

The youth spoke slowly. “Yes. He’s dead. Shot in the side.”

“Really! Jim Conklin—poor fellow!”

There was another little pause.

“The regiment lost over half its men yesterday,” remarked the friend finally. “I thought they were all dead but they kept coming back last night until it seems that we lost only a few. They were scattered all over, wandering around in the forest, fighting in other regiments—just like you did.”

“Oh,” said the youth.

Chapter 15

Guns were always to be heard, filling the air with a thundering sound. This part of the world was strange and never without battle.

The youth’s regiment marched again. The men took positions behind a curving line of rifles along the edge of the forest. Before them was a flat place, filled with broken tree trunks. From the forest beyond came the dull noise of soldiers firing. From the right came the noise of a fast battle.

The men sat quietly, awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth’s friend lay down, buried his face in his arms and, almost instantly, it seemed, he was in a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown earth and gazed over at the forest and up and down the line. Trees cut off his view. He could see only a short distance. A few idle flags were placed on the earthen hills. Behind them were rows of dark figures with a few heads looking curiously over the tops.

Always the noise of fighting came from the forest in front and to the left, and the battle on the right had grown to frightful size. The guns were roaring without an instant’s pause for breath.

Before the sun was bright, the regiment was moving carefully through the forest. The hurrying lines of the enemy could sometimes be seen through the trees and little fields. The enemy soldiers were shouting and happy.

At this sight the youth forgot personal matters and became greatly angered. He shouted in loud sentences. “We’re being led by a lot of fools, by God!”

“More than one fellow has said that today,” declared a man.

Wilson, recently awakened, was still very sleepy. He looked be hind him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then he sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose we were beaten,” he remarked sadly.

“Well, don’t we fight like the devil? Don’t we do all that men can?” demanded the youth loudly.

In his reply, the friend’s voice was firm. “No man dares say we don’t fight like the devil. No man will ever dare say it. The boys fight like hell. But still—still, we don’t have any luck.”

“Well, then, if we fight like the devil and don’t ever win, it must be the general’s fault,” the youth said grandly and decidedly. “And I don’t see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, and yet always losing because of some old fool of a general.”

A man who was walking at the youth’s side then spoke slowly. “Maybe you think you fought the whole battle yesterday, Fleming,” he remarked.

The words cut the youth. Within he was reduced to nothing by this speech. His legs shook. He gave a frightened glance at the man.

“Well, no,” he hurried to say. “I don’t think I fought the whole battle yesterday.”

But the man seemed to have no deeper meaning. Apparently, he had no information. It was merely his habit to speak this way. “Oh,” he replied in the same tone.

The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind refused to go nearer to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The man’s words took from him all thought of saying anything that would make him noticeable. He became suddenly a quiet person.

There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatient and angry, their faces clouded with the tales of bad luck. The troops, coming through the forest, were sad. In the youth’s regiment, once, a man’s laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers turned their faces quickly toward him in blame.

In a clear space the troops were at last stopped. Regiments and brigades, broken by battle, grew together again and lines were faced toward the enemy.

“Good God,” the youth complained, “we’re always being led around like dogs! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where we go or why we go.”

At this time there was a flood of speech from the young lieutenant, who felt obliged to place some of his own unhappiness upon his men. “You boys keep quiet! There is no need to waste your breath in long-winded arguments about this and that and the other. You’ve been screaming like a lot of old chickens—all you have to do is fight, and you’ll get plenty of that to do in about ten minutes. I never heard such foolish talking,” he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.

There was a wait. The strained moments that go before the battle passed slowly. In the regiment a strange kind of hesitation could be seen in the attitude of the men. They were tired and weak, having slept little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing battle as they stood waiting for the shock—waiting to be hit.

Chapter 16

This advance of the enemy seemed to the youth like a cruel hunting. He began to express his anger. He beat his foot upon the ground, and looked with hate at the rising smoke that was approaching like a flood. There was a maddening quality in this apparent determination of the enemy to give him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and run away. There had been many adventures. Today he felt that he had earned opportunity for rest and thought. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had had enough, and he wished to rest.

But the rebels seemed never to grow tired; they were fighting with their old speed. He had a wild hate for the enemy. Yesterday, when he had imagined the world to be against him, he had hated the world. Today he hated the army of the enemy with the same great hatred. He was not going to run all his life, like a cat hunted by dogs, he thought. It was not good to push men so hard.

He leaned and spoke into his friend’s ear. He threatened the forest with a movement of the hand. “If they keep coming after us, by God, they’d better be careful. We can’t sit here and let them do much more.”

The friend turned his head and made a calm reply. “If they keep coming after us, they’ll force us all into the river.”

The winds of battle had swept all around the regiment until one enemy rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in the front. A moment later the regiment roared forth its sudden and brave answer. A thick wall of smoke settled slowly down. It was often cut by the knife-like fire from the rifles.

To the youth, the fighters seemed like animals thrown for a death struggle into a dark hole. There was a feeling that he and his companions were always pushing back the attacks of fierce creatures who were slippery. Their gunfire seemed to have no effect upon the bodies of the enemy; the latter seemed to avoid them with ease, and come through, between, around and about them with unopposed skill.

He had taken a position behind a small tree, with a determination to hold it against the world. He had not thought it possible that his army could succeed that day, and thus he felt the strength to fight harder. But the group had moved in all ways, until he lost directions and locations, except that he knew where the enemy was.

The flames burned him, and the hot smoke baked his skin. His rifle grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have held it in his hand; but he kept firing it. When he shot at some changing form through the smoke, he made a fierce sound, as if he were delivering a blow with all his strength.

When the enemy seemed to move back, he went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his enemy slowing, turns and insists upon being followed. And when he was compelled to move back again, he did it slowly, angrily, taking steps of despair.

Once, in his fierce hate, he was almost alone and kept firing when all those near him had ceased. He was so completely busy that he was not aware of a silence.

He was surprised by a rough laugh and a sentence that came to his ears. “You fool, don’t you know enough to stop when there isn’t anything to shoot at?”

He turned then and looked at his companions. During this moment of silence they all seemed to be staring at him with surprise. Turning to the front again, he saw, under the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.

He was uncertain for a moment; then he understood.

He turned to his companions and fell upon the ground. His flesh seemed strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears. He reached blindly for his canteen.

The lieutenant was shouting. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called out to the youth: “By heavens, if I had ten thousand wildcats like you, I could finish this war in less than a week!”

Some of the men murmured and looked at the youth in wonder. It was clear that as he had loaded and fired and cursed without stopping; they had found time to watch him. And now they looked upon him as a war devil.

His friend came over to him. There was some fright in his voice. “Are you all right, Fleming? Do you feel all right? There isn’t anything the matter with you, Henry, is there?”

“No,” said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full and it was hard to talk.

These happenings made the youth think. He realized that he had been a beast. He saw that fighting like this had been fine, wild, and in some ways easy. He had been a magnificent sight, no doubt. By this struggle he had mastered fears which seemed to him like mountains. They had fallen like paper, and he was now what he called a hero. He had not been aware of the process. It was as if he had slept and, awakening, found he was a nobleman.

He lay back and enjoyed the stares of his companions. Their faces were black from the burned gunpowder. Their breathing was loud and hard. And from these dirty faces, they looked at him.

“Good work! Good work!” said the lieutenant. He walked back and forth, restless and eager. Sometimes his voice could be heard in a wild, strange laugh.

When he had a particularly serious thought about the science of war, he always spoke to the youth.

There was a strange joy in the talk of the men. “I guess this army will never see another new regiment like us!”

“Lost a lot of men, the enemy did!”

“Yes, and in about an hour they’ll lose a lot more!”

The forest still carried its burden of noise. From under the trees came the rolling sound of the guns. A cloud of dark smoke went up toward the sun, now bright and gay in the blue sky.

Chapter 17

The tired men rested for some minutes, but during their pause the struggle in the forest grew greater and greater until the ground seemed to shake from the rushing of other men. It seemed difficult to live in such a place. The chests of the men strained for fresh air, and their throats needed water.

The youth’s friend thought he remembered a stream nearby, and he was permitted to go for some water. Immediately canteens were given to him. “Fill mine, will you?” “Bring me some too.” “And me too.” He departed, heavily loaded. The youth went with his friend, feeling a desire to throw his heated body into the stream and drink and drink.

They made a hurried search for the water, but did not find it. “None here,” said the youth. They turned without delay and began to go back.

A moment later a general on horseback was directly in front of the two soldiers. Another officer, riding with the skill of a cowboy, moved his horse to a position directly in front of the general. The two unnoticed soldiers moved nearer to hear the conversation. Perhaps, they thought, some great things would be said.

The general, whom the boys recognized as their commander, looked at the officer and spoke coolly, without emotion. “The enemy is getting ready for another attack,” he said. “I fear they’ll break through there unless we manage to stop them.”

The other officer cursed his nervous horse and then spoke. “It will mean heavy losses,” he said shortly.

“I suppose so,” remarked the general. Then he began to talk rapidly. The two young soldiers could hear nothing until finally he asked,

“What troops can you use?”

The officer thought for an instant. “Well,” he said, “I had to order the 12th regiment to help the 76th and I haven’t really got any extra troops. But there’s the 304th. I don’t need them very much.”

The youth and his friend exchanged glances of surprise.

The general spoke sharply, “Get them ready then. I’ll watch developments from here, and send you word when to start. It’ll happen in five minutes.”

As the other officer started away, the general called after him in a serious voice. “I don’t believe many of them will get back.”

With frightened faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line.

These happenings had occupied an unbelievably short time, yet the youth felt they had made him old. New eyes were given to him. And the most surprising thing was to learn suddenly that he was very unimportant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he spoke of a brush. Some part of the forest needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated the brush in a tone properly uncaring about its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.

As the two boys approached the line, the lieutenant saw them and became angry. “Fleming—Wilson—how long does it take you to get water? Where have you been?” But he stopped when he saw their eyes.

“We’re going to attack—we’re going to attack!” cried the youth’s friend, hurrying with his news.

“Attack?” said the lieutenant. “Well! Now, this is real fighting!” Over his dirty face there went a proud smile. “Attack? Well, by God!”

A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths. “Are we, really?” “Well!” “Attack?” “What for?” “What at?” “Wilson, you’re lying.”

His friend spoke. “No, he’s not—he’s not lying. We heard them talking.”

A moment later the officers began to hurry among the men, pushing them into a closer mass and into a better line. They were like men struggling with sheep.

They were surrounded by the noises of war. The world was interested in other matters. The regiment had this small affair to itself.

The youth, turning, gave a quick, inquiring glance at his friend. The latter returned to him the same kind of look. They were the only ones who possessed the information. “—heavy losses.” “—don’t believe many will get back.” An awful secret! But they saw no hesitation in each other’s faces, and they nodded a silent agreement when a man near them said in a small voice, “We’ll get eaten.”

Chapter 18

The youth stared at the land in front of him. Every bush seemed to hide terror and power. He was not aware of the series of orders that started the attack, although from the comers of his eyes he saw an officer waving his hat. Suddenly he felt a straining among the men. The line went slowly forward like a falling wall, and with a sigh that was meant to be a cheer, the regiment began its journey. The youth was pushed for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but then he jumped ahead and began to run.

He looked at a distant group of trees where he had decided the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it. He had believed the whole time that it was only a matter of finishing something unpleasant as quickly as possible, and he ran hard. His face clearly showed the strain. His eyes were held in an awful stare. And with his dirty clothes, the torn cloth with its spot of blood on his head, his wildly swinging rifle, he appeared to be a mad soldier.

As the regiment went from its position into a clear space, the forest in front awakened. Yellow flames leaped from many directions. The forest made a fierce sound.

The line moved straight for a moment. Then the right side started forward; it in turn was passed by the left. After this, the center came to the front until the regiment was like a moving wave of water. An instant later the opposition from bushes and trees burst upon the men and scattered them.

The youth, light-footed, was in front without realizing it. His eyes still watched the group of trees. From all places near it the shouts of the enemy could be heard. Little flames from rifles leaped out. The song of the bullets sounded in the air.

All around, men fell in pain. The regiment left an awful trail of bodies.

They had passed into a clearer place. The straining pace ate the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders slowed their speed. Among some larger trees now, the men watched and waited for some of the distant smoke to move and show them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath was gone, they returned to fear.

The youth thought that he had run miles, and that he was in some new and unknown land.

The men now had opportunity to see some of their friends dropping with screams and shouts. A few lay near, silent or crying. And now, for an instant, the men stood, their rifles in their hands, and watched the regiment get smaller. They were in a state of shock. They stared blankly at the sight, and lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a strange silence.

Then, above the sounds of guns, arose the shouts of the lieutenant. He came suddenly forward, his young face filled with anger.

“Come on, you fools!” he screamed. “Come on! You can’t stay here. You must come on!” He said more, but much of it could not be understood.

He started rapidly ahead, with his head turned toward the men.

“Come on!” he was shouting. The men stared at him with dull eyes. He was obliged to stop and come back. He stood then with his back to the enemy and shouted curses into the faces of the men. His body shook from the force of his voice.

The friend of the youth moved suddenly forward. Dropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the forest. This action awakened the men. They acted no more like sheep. They seemed to think suddenly of their rifles, and at once began firing. At the shouts of the officers they began to move forward. The men stopped every few steps to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly from trees to trees.

They went painfully forward until they reached an open space. Here, behind trees, the men stopped, as if threatened by a giant wave.

Again the lieutenant began to shout and curse. Once he seized the youth by the arm. “Come on,” he roared. “Come on! We’ll all get killed if we stay here. We only have to go across that field. And then—” the remainder of his idea disappeared in curses.

The youth stretched forth his arm.

“Cross there?”

“Certainly. Just across the field! We can’t stay here,” screamed the lieutenant. He put his face close to the youth. “Come on!” It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the ear into the attack.

The youth felt a sudden unspeakable anger against his officer. He pulled away fiercely and shook him off.

“Come on yourself, then,” he shouted.

There was a bitter demand in his voice.

They ran together down the line of the regiment. The friend hurried after them. In front of the flag the three men began to shout, “Come on! Come on!” They danced and leaped like madmen.

The others waited in doubt for a moment. And then, with a long cry, the reduced regiment moved forward and began its new journey.

Over the fields went the rushing mass. It was a handful of men thrown into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly would leap the yellow flames. Blue smoke hung before them.

The youth ran like a madman to reach the trees before a bullet could find him. He put his head low. Within him was born a love, a despairing love, for the flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty, secure from harm. It was like a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it, he gave it power. He stayed near, as if it could be a saver of lives.

Then he was aware that the soldier carrying the flag jumped suddenly, as if struck by a bullet. He slowed, and then became motionless.

The youth leaped at the flag pole. At the same instant his friend came from the other side. They pulled at it. For a moment there was a fierce struggle—the dead man seemed to be fighting in awful ways for the possession of the flag.

It was over in an instant of time. They pulled the flag free, and as they turned again, the lifeless body fell forward with bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend’s shoulder.

Chapter 19

When the two youths turned with the flag, they saw that much of the regiment had moved back. It moved back slowly, with faces still toward the forest and rifles still replying to the fire. Several officers were giving orders with screaming voices.

“Where in hell are you going?” the lieutenant was shouting. And a red-haired officer was commanding, “Shoot into them! Shoot into them!” The men were trying to do opposite and hopeless things.

The youth and his friend had a small argument over the flag. “Give it to me!” “No, let me keep it!” Each felt satisfied with the other’s possession of it, but each felt the need to declare, by an offer to carry the flag, his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed his friend away.

The regiment fell back to the trees. There it stopped for a moment to fire at some dark forms that had begun to follow it. Then it marched again, curving among the trees. By the time it again reached the first open space, the men were receiving fast and merciless fire. There seemed to be enemy mobs all around them.

The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet. With pride he kept the flag straight. He called to the others. To those he knew well he made special appeals, begging them by name. Between himself and the lieutenant there was felt fellowship and equality.

But the regiment was a broken machine. The two men shouted at a forceless thing. The soldiers who had heart to go slowly forward were continually shaken by a certainty that others were going back. Wounded men were left crying on this sorrowful journey.

There was smoke and flame always. The youth, looking once through a sudden clearing of smoke, saw a brown mass of troops. The youth walked straight ahead and, with his flag in his hands, took a stand, as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He passed over his forehead a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely.

The officers labored hard to bring the men into a proper circle to face the enemy. The ground was uneven and torn. The men curled into hollows and fitted themselves behind whatever would turn away a bullet.

The youth noticed with surprise that the lieutenant was standing with his legs far apart and his sword touching the ground. The youth wondered what had happened to his voice, because he no longer cursed.

There was something strange in this little pause of the lieutenant. He was like a child who, having cried, raises its eyes and looks upon a distant toy.

The silent men were suddenly strengthened by the eager voice of the lieutenant screaming, “Here they come! Right on to us, by God!” His other words were lost in a wild roar of thunder from the men’s rifles.

The youth’s eyes had turned instantly in the direction indicated by the lieutenant, and he saw the soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their faces. Their uniforms were rather gay, being light gray with touches of bright color. And, their clothes seemed new.

These troops had apparently been going forward, their rifles held in readiness, when the lieutenant had discovered them. Their movement had been interrupted by the shooting from the blue regiment. It seemed that they had been unaware of the closeness of their blue enemies, or had mistaken the direction.

Almost instantly they were hidden from the youth’s sight by the smoke from the busy rifles of his companions. He strained his eyes to learn the results of the shooting, but the smoke hung before him. There appeared to be many of them, and they were replying quickly. They moved toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seated himself sadly on the ground, with his flag between his knees.

But soon the blows of the enemy began to grow weaker. Fewer bullets tore the air, and finally, when the men paused they could see only dark, floating smoke. The regiment lay still and watched. The smoke rolled away enough to show a lonely ground. It would have been an empty space except for a few bodies that lay in odd positions.

At the sight of this scene, many of the men in blue began to dance with joy. Their eyes burned, and a cheer of gladness broke from their dry lips.

It had seemed to them that events were trying to prove that they must lose. The other battles had tried to prove that the men could not fight well. Then this small battle showed them that their chances were not hopeless, and thus they had proven themselves.

Eagerness was theirs again. They looked about with pride, feeling new trust in the rifles in their hands. And they were men.

Chapter 20

Soon they knew that no fighting threatened them. All ways seemed once more opened to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were seen a short distance away. Far away there were great noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness.

They felt that they were free. The small group took a long breath of relief and gathered itself to complete its trip.

In this last length of journey, the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been brave in fiercest moments now could not hide their anxious feelings. It was perhaps that they did not wish to be killed in unimportant ways after the time for proper military deaths had passed. And so they hurried.

As they approached their own forces there were some rough remarks by another regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees.

“Where do you think you have been?”

“What are you coming back for?”

“Why didn’t you stay there?”

“Was it warm out there, sir?”

“Going home now, boys?”

“Oh, look at the soldiers!”

There was no reply from the hurt and shaken regiment. The youth’s tender emotions were deeply burned by these remarks. They turned when they arrived at their old position, to regard the ground over which they had rushed.

The youth was shocked. He discovered that the distances, compared with the large measurings in his mind, were small indeed. The trees, where much had happened, seemed unbelievably near. The time, too, he realized, had been short. He wondered about the emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Tricks played by the thoughts of the moment must have enlarged everything, he felt.

It seemed then that there was some bitter justice in the speeches of the other regiment. He looked down upon his friends lying upon the ground, breathless with dust and heat. They were drinking from their canteens, fierce to get every drop of water.

However, to the youth there was considerable joy in thinking of his own performances during the attack. There had been very little time before in which to admire himself, so now there was much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions. He remembered things that in the battle had sunk unnoticed into his mind.

As the regiment lay catching its breath, the officer who had named them to make the attack came up on his horse. He stopped the animal with an angry pull near the colonel of the regiment. He immediately began blaming the colonel in strong words, which came clearly to the ears of the men.

“What an awful job you made of this thing, MacChesnay! Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hundred feet before a very fine success! If your men had gone another hundred feet you would have made a great attack, but as it is—what a lot of mud diggers you’ve got!”

The men, listening quietly, now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel. They had a real interest in this matter.

The colonel straightened himself, and put one hand forth in speech-making fashion. He wore a hurt look; it was as if a minister had been blamed for stealing. The men were excited.

But suddenly the colonel’s manner changed. He shook his head. “Oh, well, general, we went as far as we could,” he said calmly.

“As far as you could? Did you, by God?” said the general. “Well, that wasn’t very far, was it?” He looked with cold anger into the other’s eyes. “Not very far, I think.” He turned his horse and rode stiffly away.

The news that the regiment had been blamed went along the line. For a time the men were surprised by it. They stared at the disappearing form of the general. They thought it must be a huge mistake.

In a short time, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been unmeaningful. The youth could see this weigh heavily upon the entire regiment, until the men were like chained animals.

The youth developed a calm philosophy for these moments. “Oh, well,” he declared to his friends, “he probably didn’t see any of it, and got angry. He probably decided we were wrong just because we didn’t do what he wanted.”

Several men came hurrying to them. Their faces showed that they brought great news.

“Henry, you just should have heard!” cried one eagerly.

“You should have heard!” repeated another, and arranged himself to tell his story. The others formed an excited circle.

“Well, sir,” the storyteller proceeded, “the colonel met the lieutenant, who was standing near us—it was the best thing I ever heard! The colonel said to the lieutenant, ‘Mr. Hasbrouck, who was that lad that carried the flag?’ There, Fleming, what do you think of that? The lieutenant said right away, ‘That’s Fleming, and he’s a good soldier!’ The colonel said, ‘He is, indeed, a very good man to have! He kept the flag right in front. I saw him. He’s a good one,’ said the colonel. ‘Yes, sir!’ said the lieutenant, ‘he and a fellow named Wilson were at the front of the attack.’ ‘Well,’ said the colonel, ‘they deserve to be major-generals!’”

The youth and his friend endured the joking that followed with the greatest pleasure—they knew that their faces became a deep red from the emotions they felt. They exchanged a secret glance of joy and pride.

They quickly forgot many things. The past held no pictures of error and defeat. They were very happy, and their hearts filled with grateful warmth toward the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.

Chapter 21

When the masses of the enemy again began to come from the forest, the youth felt great self-confidence. He stood, tall and calm, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of a nearby hill. His view was not hidden by smoke, so he had opportunity to see parts of the hard fight.

A short distance away, he saw two regiments fighting a separate little battle with two other regiments. The battle had a set-apart look. The firing was unbelievably fierce and rapid. Apparently these busy regiments were occupied completely in this battle.

In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade marching with the intention of driving the enemy from a part of the forest. They passed from sight and soon there was a mighty noise in the forest. The brigade, after a little time, came marching out again, in no way divided.

The battle between the four regiments lasted for some time. Then the gray-colored regiments moved back, leaving the blue lines shouting. The youth could see two flags shaking with laughter in the middle of the remaining smoke.

Finally there was a stillness, deep with meaning. The blue lines stared expectantly at the silent forests and fields before them.

The youth’s regiment came forth with a new fierceness when it was time again to fight. The men burst out in angry pain at the first scatter of bullets. They bent their heads in hatred behind their guns. Their eager arms unceasingly loaded the rifles. The front of the regiment was a wall of smoke, broken by flashing points of yellow and red.

A strong section of the enemy line came within dangerous distance. They could be seen plainly—tall men with excited faces, running toward a fence.

At sight of this danger, the men suddenly ceased their talking. There was an instant of silence before they raised their rifles and fired.

But the enemy was quick to gain the protection of the fence. They slipped down behind it with remarkable ease, and from this position they began carefully to shoot the blue men.

The youth was determined not to move, no matter what might happen.

Blue figures began to drop. Some fell down at the feet of their companions. Others, wounded, moved away; but many lay still, their bodies turned into impossible shapes.

The youth looked around for his friend. He saw him. The lieutenant, also, was in his position in the rear. He had continued to curse, but with a voice rapidly growing weak.

The colonel came running along behind the line. There were other officers following him. “We must attack!” they shouted. “We must attack!” They had strained voices, as if expecting a refusal by the men.

The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance between him and the enemy. He made a guess. He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in the present place. Their hope was to push the enemy away from the fence.

He expected that his companions would have to be forced to make this attack. But as he turned toward them, he saw that they were giving quick and unquestioning expressions of approval. At the words of command, the soldiers began to push forward in eager leaps. There was new and unexpected force in the movement of the regiment. It was a blind and despairing rush by the men in dusty blue, over grass and under a bright sky, toward a fence. From behind it spoke the fierce guns of the enemy.

Chapter 22

The youth kept the bright flag in the front. He was waving his free arm in fast circles, screaming appeals, urging forward those who did not need to be urged. It seemed that the mob of blue men throwing themselves on this dangerous group of rifles was again suddenly wild with a spirit of selflessness. It looked as if the mob would merely succeed in becoming a great spread of dead men on the grass in front of the fence. But they were in a state of madness.

The youth thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the fence. There were quiet flashings of joy within him that he had such thoughts.

He put forth all his strength. His eyesight was shaken by the effort of thought and muscle. He did not see anything except the smoke and the fire, but he knew that in it lay the old fence of an absent farmer— the fence protecting the hidden figures of the gray men.

As the smoke rolled away, it revealed men who ran, their bodies turned to send back bullets at the blue line.

But behind one part of the fence there was a determined group that made no movement. They were settled down firmly. A flag waved over them and their rifles continued to fire.

The youth centered his eyes upon that other flag. Its possession would give great pride. He jumped crazily at it. He was determined that it should not escape if wild grasps could seize it. His own flag was pointing toward the other.

The blue men came to a sudden stop and fired their guns rapidly. The group in gray was broken by this fire, but it still fought. The men in blue rushed upon it.

Among the gray was the flag bearer, who had been badly hurt by the last rain of bullets. Over his face was the look of death, but upon it were the hard lines of determined purpose. He held his precious flag close to him and was struggling to go the way that led to safety for it.

The youth’s friend went over the fence in a single leap and made a jump at the flag. Pulling it free, he lifted up its red colors with a mad cry of victory, just as the flag bearer turned his dead face to the ground.

There was some long grass. The youth rested in it, making the fence support his flag. His friend, full of joy and glory, holding his treasure with pride, came to him there. They sat, side by side, and praised each other.

Finally the youth arose. “Well, what now, I wonder?” he said.

His friend also rose and stared. “I think we’re going to go back across the river,” he said.

They waited, watching. Within a little while, the regiment received orders to go back the way it had come. The men got up from the soft grass.

They traveled slowly across the field through which they had run in their mad attack.

The regiment marched until it joined others. The brigade marched through a forest to the road. Soon they were in a mass of dust-covered troops. At this point, they all curved away from the field and went off in the direction of the river.

The youth breathed a breath of new satisfaction. He finally touched his friend. “Well, it’s all over,” he said to him.

“By God, it is!”

They thought about it.

Gradually the youth was able to more closely understand himself and what had happened.

He understood that the shooting was in the past. He had been in a land of strange battle and had come through. He had been where there was red blood and black passion, and he had escaped. His first thoughts were thoughts of joy at this fact.

Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his accomplishments. At last his acts passed before him clearly.

The youth felt happy and without guilt as he remembered, for his public deeds were things of great and shining beauty.

It was a pleasure to think of these things. He realized that he was good.

Nevertheless, the memory of his running from the first battle appeared to him.

He thought with shame of the tattered soldier who, broken by bullets and losing blood, had worried about an imagined wound in the youth. The tattered soldier had given his last strength to Jim Conklin. And, tired and hurt, he had been left alone in the field.

For an instant, the youth’s heart seemed frozen at the thought that his actions might be discovered. And for a time this steady remembering of the tattered man took all joy from the youth. He saw his error always before him, and he was afraid it would stand before him all his life.

But gradually he gathered strength to put the sin at a distance. Then he regarded it with what he thought was great calmness. It would become a part of him. He would have to live with the realization of a great mistake. And from it he would learn to be gentle with others. He would be a man.

His eyes were now open to new ways. He found that he could look back upon his earlier ideas of the glory of war and see them differently. He was glad when he discovered that he now hated them. He had come from his struggles with a better understanding of the world.

With this recognition came a new assurance. He felt a quiet manliness, calm but strong and healthy. He had faced the great death, and found that, after all, it was only the great death. He was a man.

It rained. The tired soldiers marched with effort through the brown mud under a low, dark sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him. He had freed himself of the red sickness of battle. The awful dream was in the past. He had been an animal burned and wounded in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover’s desire to thoughts of calm skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks—an existence of soft and everlasting peace.

Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the masses of gray rain clouds.

GLOSSARY

(Meanings explained here are only for the use of the words in this book.)

Badge: a sign worn to show position or membership; a mark of accomplishment

Bride: a woman who has just been married

Brigade: two or more regiments joined together as a fighting group

Bullet: a small piece of metal that is shot from a gun

Canteen: a small container for liquid, carried by soldiers

Cheat: to play cards in a manner that is not honest

Correspondent: a person who writes articles for a newspaper or magazine

Cowboy: a man who cares for cattle and is skilled in riding a horse

Drunk: so strongly influenced by liquor that self-control is lost

Gambler: a person who makes his living by playing games of chance

Oar: a wooden pole, flat and wide at one end, used for rowing a small boat

Oiler: a person who oils the machines on a ship

Rebel: a person who opposes authority. In the American Civil War between the Northern and Southern states (1861-65), this word was applied to the Southern side

Regiment: a large group of soldiers commanded by a colonel

Rifle: a long, heavy gun that is supported on the shoulder for firing

Saloon: a public place where liquor is sold and drunk

Swede: a man who originally came from Sweden

Tattered: wearing clothes that are torn and full of holes

Whiskey: a strong liquor made from grain