y be
colonels in another six months; for when a name is recommended for
promotion for good service, by a general, you may well suppose
there is no question asked as to his age. Of course, no general
would recommend you as captains to command companies in a regiment,
because you are altogether ignorant of a captain's duty; but you
are quite capable of filling the duties of captain, on the staff,
as those duties require only clear headedness, pluck, attention,
and common sense.

"What I should like to win, even more than a company--were I in
your place--would be a commander's cross in the legion of honor. I
had the cross, years ago; but I only had the commander's cross a
fortnight ago, for the Bridge of Vesouze."

"Ah, yes," Ralph said, "that would be worth winning, but that is
hopeless."

Colonel Tempe was silent. Ralph and Percy looked at him.

"You mean," Ralph said, after a pause, "that there is a chance of
our winning it."

"Well, boys," Colonel Tempe said, "I don't know that I am right in
leading you into danger, but I do think that you might win it. I
was mentioning your names, only yesterday, to Gambetta. A dispatch
had just come in from Paris, grumbling at receiving no news from
the country; and Gambetta was lamenting over the impossibility of
arranging for simultaneous movements, owing to the breakdown of the
pigeons, and the failure of the messengers; when I said:

"'There were two young English fellows with us, in the Vosges--they
were on Cambriels' staff last, and are now prisoners--who if they
were here would, I believe, get in if anyone could. They went down,
over and over again, among the Germans; and I could lay any money
that they would succeed.'

"'How did they get taken prisoners?' Gambetta asked, as sharp as a
knife.

"'By no fault of their own,' I answered. 'They went out on leave,
to see me; and slept with a party of franc tireurs--where they of
course had no authority, as to sentries--and the party was
surprised, at night, and completely cut up. They were taken
prisoners, but I do not expect that they will remain so for long.'

"Gambetta did not say anything, then; but when I left him, an hour
afterwards, he remarked:

"'If you hear of those young fellows you were speaking of having
returned, send them to me, Tempe.'"

Ralph looked at Percy, and checked the offer to go which he saw was
on his brother's lips.

"I think it might be done, colonel," he said, quietly; "but it is a
ser