and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay
veet--Allay veet t'ell outer here."

An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook shack indicated that one
juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul
Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold
hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of
his breeches.

Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the cook shack shaking
a soup ladle after the departing Paul and shouting imprecations in
Italian-American.

"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the low camp stove and
removed a hot pan, the surface of whose bubbling contents bore an
unmistakable imprint. "Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de
finger in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He fall over
de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He spoila de mess. He burn
heese pants. Tam good!"

And over there in front of the regimental wagon train picket line, a
gesticulating trio is engaged in a three cornered Christmas discussion.
One is M. Lecompte, who is the uniformed French interpreter on the
Colonel's staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, the
tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the triangle is little
Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte's hand and looks up in awe at
the huge Irish soldier.

"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, pointing to the
enormous hip boots which Moriarity is wearing.

"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the Irishman. "And for
the love of heavin, what would he be after doin' wid it? Sure and the
top of it is higher than the head of him."

"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. "The French children
do not hang up their stockings for Christmas. Instead they place their
wooden shoes on the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them.
You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."

"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one boot and hopping on
one foot toward the stables. "Take it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it
filled wid dimonds and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near
the fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a oyster."

The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace of red-whiskered
ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking his lips. Then little Pierre
was off to his mother's cottage, dragging the seven league boot after
him.

With th