a lump of ice off into space; the staff officer glanced at him
and looked away hurriedly.

"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we're not regulars--not like the
others. The Canadian division is different. Its discipline is
different--in spite of Salisbury Plain and K. of K. In my regiment there
are half-breeds, pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees of all degrees,
British, Canadians, gentlemen adventurers from Cosmopolis. They're good
soldiers, but do you think they'd stay here? It is so in the Athabasca
Battalion; it is the same in every battalion. They wouldn't stay here ten
months. They couldn't. We are free people; we can't stand indefinite
caging; we've got to have walking room once every few months."

The staff officer murmured something.

"I know; but good God, man! Four of us have been on this peak for nearly
ten months. We've never seen a Boche, never heard a shot. Seasons come and
go, rain falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the Alps, but nothing else
comes to us except a half-frozen bird or two."

The staff officer looked about him with an involuntary shiver. There was
nothing to see except the sun on the wet, black rocks and the whitewashed
observation station of solid stone from which wires sagged into the valley
on the French side.

"Well--good luck," he said hastily, looking as embarrassed as he felt.
"I'll be toddling along."

"Will you say a word to the General, like a good chap? Tell him how it is
with us--four of us all alone up here since the beginning. There's Gary,
Captain in the Athabasca Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were known;
there's Flint, a cockney lieutenant in a Calgary battery; there's young
Gray, a lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander; and here's me, a major in
the Yukon Battalion--four of us on the top of a cursed French
mountain--ten months of each other, of solitude, silence--and the whole
world rocking with battles--and not a sound up here--not a whisper! I tell
you we're four sick men! We've got a grip on ourselves yet, but it's
slipping. We're still fairly civil to each other, but the strain is
killing. Sullen silences smother irritability, but--" he added in a
peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect we are likely to start killing each
other if somebody doesn't get us out of here very damn quick."

The staff captain's lips formed the words, "Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but
his articulation was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly, still
murmuring.

Carfax stood in th