ad recognized one another. Pelle had served under
the officer years ago. The encounter had been too much for Quatro Oyos:
that, and the money the general gave him at parting. Remembrance of past
days was the enemy in the Legion. Four Eyes had been half drunk ever
since, and had escaped prison only by a miracle. That, however, was
nothing new for him. He had been corporal twice and sergeant once; each
time he had been "broke" because of drink. In spite of all, he had stuck
to the Legion. There was no other place for him on earth. The Legion was
his country now--his only country and his only home. His medals he had
asked Max to keep till he "settled down again." They mustn't go to the
places where the _cafard_ would take him. They mustn't risk disgrace
through things which the _cafard_ might make him do. He looked like the
ruin of a man in the revealing moonshine. But to-morrow he would be a
soldier again till night came, and sooner or later he would pull himself
together--more or less. The medals he had won and his love of sport were
his incentives. Yet there were other men who had no medals and no
special incentives, and to-night Max felt himself down on a level with
those.

"What incentive have I?" he asked, in a flash of furious rebellion
against fate, conscious yet not caring that such thoughts spawned the
beetle in the brain. Five years of this life to look forward to!--the
life he had pledged himself to live. The officers did their best. It was
_vieux style_ nowadays for an officer of the Legion to be cruel. But try
as they might to break the sameness of barrack life by changing the
order of drill and exercise--fencing one day, boxing the next, then
gymnastics, target-practice, marching, skirmishing, learning first aid
to the wounded, giving all the variety possible, the monotony was
heart-breaking, as Colonel DeLisle had warned him it would be. And a
great march, when a march meant the chance of a fight, didn't always
come in the way of a young soldier, even one whose conduct was
unsmirched by any stain. Max did not know yet whether he would be taken
on the march that all the garrison was talking of. To-night the beetle
in his brain tried to make him think he would not be taken. There was no
luck any more for him! And as for his corporal's stripe, if he got it
soon, what a pathetic prize for a man who had been a lieutenant in the
--th Cavalry, the crack cavalry regiment of the United States Army!

Oh, better not