hat.

The dull lamplight revealed the makeshift of the hospital. There were
no bunks, only the hard earthen floor cleared of stones. Its log walls
were stopped with mud to keep the weather out. A packing case formed
the table on which the doctor's instruments were laid out. It was
rough, uncouth. Its inadequacy was only mitigated by the skill and
gentle mercy of the man.

Kars' voice broke in upon the doctor's preoccupation.

"Twenty," he said. "Twenty out of eighty."

Bill glanced up from the wounded head he was dressing.

"And the fight just started."

Kars stirred from the support of the door-casing which had served to
rest his weary body.

"Yes," he admitted.

Then he turned away. There seemed to be nothing further to add. He
drew a deep breath as he moved into the open.

A moment later he was moving with rapid strides in the direction of the
battle-ground. A hard light was shining in his steady eyes, his jaws
were sternly set. All feeling of the moment before had passed. The
gray of dawn was spreading over the eastern sky. His nightmare was
over. There was only left for him the execution of those plans he had
so carefully worked out during the long days of preparation.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HARVEST OF BATTLE

The sun rose on a scene of great activity. It was the garnering of the
harvest of battle. The light of day smiled down on this oasis on a
barren foreshore of Bell River and searched it from end to end. It was
so small in the immensity of its surroundings. Isolated, cut off from
all outside help, it looked as though a deep breath of the Living
Purpose of Life must have swept it away like some ant heap lying in the
path of a thrusting broom. Yet it had withstood the shock of battle
victoriously, and those surviving were counting the harvest.

But there was no smile in the heart of man. A hundred dead lay
scattered on the foreshore. They congested the defences of the camp.
They had even breathed their last agony within the precincts which they
had sought to conquer. Mean, undersized, dusky-skinned, half-nude
creatures sprawled everywhere, revealing in their attitudes something
of that last suffering before the great release. Doubtless the price
had been paid with little enough regret, for that is the savage way.
It was for their living comrades to deplore the loss, but only for the
serious depletion of their ranks.

The victorious defenders had no thought beyond the bl