observing their own fire, which was now intense. The attack at Railway Wood had been launched and had been successful. The British were now preparing their counter-attack.

"Through to the battery, sir," said the trumpeter, who had been busy with his telephone. "Brigade just sent through, 'All artillery to keep fire east of Y14, Y17, Y20.'"

"Just in time for the counter-push," said the major. "Very well; say I will take over now. All guns lift one hundred."

"The major says 'e will take over. All guns lift one hundred.”

For the next five hours the major did not leave his telescope or the boy his instrument. The battery fired continuously. Every time a gun fired, the telephonist at the battery end reported:

"Number One gun fired. Number Two gun fired," and the trumpeter called up to the major:

"Number One gun fired. Number Two gun fired." Then the major called. down his directions:

"Number One gun ten degrees more left. Number Two gun fifty minutes more right."

In between the constant interchange of fire direction there were messages from the brigade to be taken down. To prevent confusion, the trumpeter wrote the latter on slips of paper, with which he had filled his pockets. When there was a lull for half a minute, he lighted a cigarette, but he never had the chance to smoke one out. The counter-attack at Railway Wood was successful, but at the moment that the English re-occupied the lost trench the Germans delivered a much bigger attack, as the major had foretold to Drummond, all along the line to the south of the railway. The artillery fire was at once switched southward. At 4:50 the brigade telephoned:

"Quicken up fire on Dead Man's Bottom front, as our men seem to be coming back."

The 809th and 810th batteries endeavored to create a barrage of fire in front of the threatened position.. 809th Battery

concentrated the fire of all six guns on the ground in front of the Bellewarde ridge, one of those slight elevations of ground, ten yards difference of contour at the most, for the possession of which each side is prepared to kill the other in Flanders. The trenches were about two hundred yards apart here, and the ruins of Bellewarde Farm lay half-way between the two. Half a dozen times in as many minutes the German bombers dashed from their trenches, about ten men at a time, but each successive party was stretched out by the artillery fire before it could reach the farm.

The major had developed a habit of talking aloud while observing. It seemed quite natural to the trumpeter, as indeed did everything else that the major did, and he paid little attention to it.

"What brave fellows they are!" the major suddenly exclaimed. He remembered vaguely-it was the first time his thoughts had strayed that morning-how the last time he was on leave in England a woman had said to him:

"I know for a fact their officers have to beat the men with whips to get them to attack. I was told it by an officer who had been to the front."

"And whereabouts was your officer friend?" the major had asked politely. "Oh, Boulogne, I think," she had replied.

The major brought his thoughts back with a jerk; his eye had never wandered from the glass.

"Message, sir," the trumpeter was saying from below. ""To 809th Battery. Can you inform who now holds Bellewarde Farm and line Y8, YII, Y14? From 405th Brigade.'"

AT ten o'clock the major for the first time. took his eye off the telescope. "You 'd better get something to eat, Bradby," he said. "You might have done worse work than you did this morning; I think you kept the messages pretty clear."

Had any one else been present, the boy would have scorned to show satisfaction at the commendation of his superior of

ficer; as it was, he flushed with pleasure. The major had never said words of praise. to him before. Indeed, the major rarely spoke on subjects other than duty to any of his men. They respected him immensely, understood him through and through, and thought him "a proper officer." To Tim Bradby the major was the central point of the firmament, round which all other planets revolved. As he put down the telephone-receiver and began to open a tin of bully-beef, he felt repaid for any number of toilsome days. and sleepless nights.

The major had resumed his position at the glass.

"Great mistake to tell them when they do well," he was saying to himself; "they always do worse afterward. That boy had done good work this morning. though," he added illogically.

CRASH! The sky rocked, and the ruins of the farm seemed to rise up under them. The major was swept off the beer barrels, and fell in the wreckage of the building. For a few seconds the debris flung into the air by the shell's explosion continued to fall, and by a sort of instinct the major lay still. Then he raised his head. "Trumpeter! Trumpeter!" he called. "Have they hurt you?"

He crawled out of the wreckage. He noticed that he could crawl only on his right side. "Must have bruised myself pretty badly on my left," he thought. At first he did not know which way to look for the trumpeter, as the destruction of the observation-post had changed the aspect of the site. Then he got his bearings, and caught sight of the trumpeter. The trumpeter's head had been crushed into his neck, and was not to be seen; blood was spurting from the trunk. The scraps of paper on which the boy had written down the telephone-messages were scattered over the body like a pall of leaves.

The major was transformed by the sight.

"Brutes! Brutes! Murderers!" he shouted to the empty ruins. He looked

He

round. The telephone lay there. took up the receiver. "Battery! Battery! Is that you, Battery?" By a miracle the line was not cut. "All guns on Y14!"

His one thought now was to kill Germans while he could. He dropped the receiver, and with great effort propped himself against a fragment of wall that was still standing. The telescope had disappeared, but his field-glasses, which were slung round him, were still unhurt, and he was able to make out a party of the enemy leaving their trenches for another assault on Bellewarde Farm. The fire of his battery caught them as they left the trench. He saw them fall. He reached for the telephone again, lost his balance, and fell. Another shell burst close by. When he picked up the receiver again, the wire was cut.

now.

THE desire to kill had gone from him He felt that great weakness was coming over him, and looking down at his left leg, he saw that the blood was coming from his thigh in thick jets. "That looks like an artery," he said to himself, and tried to bind the leg with his handkerchief; but with only one hand he could not tie a knot, and after a while he gave up the attempt. There was something else he wanted to do, and it was getting harder every minute to do anything. He felt in his pocket for something to write with. He found a Signals and Messages Book, and, what luck! there was a pencil lying by the trumpeter. He rolled to the pencil and picked it up. Then he wrote two letters. The first was to his wife. It was as follows:

Dearest:

Poor trumpeter was killed beside me by a H. E. He was a real good boy. His name is Bradby. [Here he felt for the trumpeter's pay-book] His number is 07456. Please find out about his people and do what we can. Good-by, my dear. I think you will know what I am thinking about now. Good-by!

CECIL.

THE

HE meetings of the Little Flock had continued ever since the reappearance of Dylks, and in the earlier spirit. But the spring was broken, and since he had said that the New Jerusalem would not come down at Leatherwood, many had lost not faith, but hope. Few could have the hope of following him as far as far-off Philadelphia, and sharing the glories which he promised them there. For a pioneer community, the people were none of them poor; some were accounted rich, and among the richest were many followers of Dylks. But most of the Flock were hardworking farmers who could not spare the time or the money for that long journey Over-the-Mountains, even with the prospect of the heavenly city at the end. Yet certain of the poorest set their houses in order, and mortgaged their lands, and went with the richest, when on a morning after the last great meeting in the Temple the Little Flock assembled for parting, some to go and some to stay.

Nancy did not come with her boy for the farewell. They had kissed each other at the cabin door, and then he had run light-heartedly away, full of wild expectation, to find Benny Hingston at the Cross Roads and race with him to join the crowd before the Temple, where the Little Flock stood listening to the last words which the Good Old Man would speak to them in Leatherwood. Many wept; Dylks himself was crying. The enemies of their faith did not molest them except for a yelp of derision now and then, and a long-drawn howl from the Hounds, kept well back by the Herd of the Lost, under the command of Redfield. He stood in the chief place among these, and at his right hand Matthew Braile leaned on his stick.

When the last prayer had been said, and they who were going had kissed, or shaken hands with, those who were staying, and friends and foes had both scattered, Braile said to the young man, whom he now faced:

"Well, that's the last of him."

Redfield's jaw was still set from the effort of seeing the affair through in as much decency as he had been able to enforce.

"It ain't the last of them. But I reckon, now he's gone, they 'll behave themselves. None of the saints that are left will make trouble."

"No, with Enraghty out of the way, and that kind old fool Hingston, with his example of mistaken righteousness, we can get along fairly enough with the old dispensation. Well, Abel," he called to Reverdy, who was lounging about in the empty space which the crowd had left, unwilling to leave the scene of so much excitement for the dull labors of the field, "you thought you would n't go to see the New Jerusalem come down, after all. How 's the Good Old Man goin' to work it without you?"

"He's had to work things 'thout me for a good while now, Squire," Abel returned, not with perfect satisfaction in the part assigned him by the irony of the squire. "Ever sence that night at Mr. Enraghty's, I been poortty much done with him. A god that could n't help hisself in a little trouble like that, he ain't no god for me."

"Oh, I remember. But what about Sally? She did n't go with the Little Flock, either?"

"I reckon me 'n' Sally thinks poortty much alike about the Little Flock," Abel said with as much hauteur as a man in his

bare feet could command. "We hain't either of us got any use for Little Flocks any more."

"Well, I'm glad of it. But I thought she might have come to see them off."

Abel relented.

"Sally ain't very well this mornin'. Up all night with the toothache." Redfield had turned from them, and Abel now remarked: “I was wonderin' whether I could n't borry a little coffee from Mis' Braile for breakfast. I been so took up 'ith all these goun's on that I hain't had no time to go to the store."

"Why, certainly," the squire replied; "and you'd better come and have breakfast with us on the way home. I came down without mine, so as to see the Ancient of Days off, and make sure of it."

"Pshaw, Squire, it don't seem quite right to have you usun' them old Bible sayun's so common-like."

"Well, Abel, perhaps it is n't quite the thing. But you must make allowance for my being in such high spirits. I have n't breathed so free in a coon's age. I would like to have stowed Dylks for a little while in the loft with ours. But Mis' Braile would n't hear of it. Well, we 've seen the last of him, I hope. And now we 're hearing the last of him." He halted Abel in their walk at a rise in the ground where they caught the sound of the hymn which the Little Flock, following Dylks for a certain way, were singing. ""Sounds weel at a distance,' as the Scotchman said of the bagpipes. And the farther the better. I don't believe I should care if I never heard that tune again." They reached Braile's cabin, and he said, "Well, now come in and have something to stay your stomach while you 're waiting for Sally to make. the coffee you 're going to borrow."

"No, I reckon not, Squire," Abel loyally held out.

"Well, then, come in and get the coffee, anyhow."

"I reckon that 's a good idea, Squire," Abel assented, with a laugh for the joke at his cost. As they mounted the steps, Braile stopped him at the sound of voices in the kitchen.

A prevalent voice was the voice of Sally. "Well, just one sup more, Mis' Braile. You do make the best coffee! I believe in my heart that it 's took my toothache all away a'ready, and I suppose poor Abel 'll be goun' up home with some of that miser'ble stuff he gits at the store, and expectun' to find me there in bed yit. I thought I'd jest slip down and borry a little o' yourn to surprise him with; but when I smelt it, I jest could n't hold out. I don't suppose but what he stayed to see the Little Flock off, anyway, and you say Squire Braile went. Well, I reckon he had to, justice o' the peace, that way. I'm thankful the Good Old Man 's gone, for one, and I don't never want to see hide or hair of him ag'in in Leatherwood. There's such a thing as gittun' enough of a thing, and I 've got enough of strange gods for one while."

Murmurs of reply came from Mrs. Braile at times, but Sally mainly kept the word.

"Well, and what do you think of Nancy Billun's lettun' her Joey go off with the Little Flock, her talkun' the way she always done about 'em? Of course he 's safe with Mr. Hingston and Benny, and they'll bring him back all right, but don't you think she 'd be afeared 'ut he might be took up in the New Jerusalem when it riz ag'in?"

"Abel," the squire said, "I don't like this. We seem to be listening. I don't believe Sally will like our overhearing her, and we ought to warn her. It's no use your stamping your bare feet, for they would n't make any noise. I'll rap my stick on the floor." He also called out, "Hello, the house!" and Sally herself came to the kitchen door. She burst into her large laugh. "Well, I declare to goodness, if it ain't Abel and the squire! Well, if this ain't the best joke on me! Did you see Dylks off, Squire Braile? And a good riddance to bad rubbage, I say."

XX

HUGHEY BLAKE, long-haired, barefooted, and freckled, hung about the door of