r it is surprising how much courage, goodness
and real piety is stowed away in common folks ready to show when the
right time comes."

"Tell us one of them, and I'll bless you for a hint. No one knows the
anguish of an author's spirit when he can't ring down the curtain on
an effective tableau," said Randal, with a glance at his friends to
ask their aid in eliciting an anecdote or reminiscence.

"Tell about the splendid fellow who held the bridge, like Horatius,
till help came up. That was a thrilling story, I assure you," answered
Sophie, with an inviting smile.

But Saul would not be his own hero, and said briefly:

"Any man can be brave when the battle-fever is on him, and it only
takes a little physical courage to dash ahead." He paused a moment,
with his eyes on the snowy landscape without, where twilight was
deepening; then, as if constrained by the memory that winter scene
evoked, he slowly continued,--

"One of the bravest things I ever knew was done by a poor fellow who
has been a hero to me ever since, though I only met him that night.
It was after one of the big battles of that last winter, and I was
knocked over with a broken leg and two or three bullets here and
there. Night was coming on, snow falling, and a sharp wind blew over
the field where a lot of us lay, dead and alive, waiting for the
ambulance to come and pick us up. There was skirmishing going on not
far off, and our prospects were rather poor between frost and fire. I
was calculating how I'd manage, when I found two poor chaps close by
who were worse off, so I braced up and did what I could for them. One
had an arm blown away, and kept up a dreadful groaning. The other
was shot bad, and bleeding to death for want of help, but never
complained. He was nearest, and I liked his pluck, for he spoke
cheerful and made me ashamed to growl. Such times make dreadful brutes
of men if they haven't something to hold on to, and all three of us
were most wild with pain and cold and hunger, for we'd fought all day
fasting, when we heard a rumble in the road below, and saw lanterns
bobbing round. That meant life to us, and we all tried to holler; two
of us were pretty faint, but I managed a good yell, and they heard it.

"'Room for one more. Hard luck, old boys, but we are full and must
save the worst wounded first. Take a drink, and hold on till we come
back,' says one of them with the stretcher.

"'Here's the one to go,' I says, pointin' out my man, f