pe, for part of a division had yet to come up
from the assembly trenches in the rear, to form another wave which would
go barging after the first.

Streams of these steel-helmeted fellows now began to pass--as the fluid
line had passed in yesterday's twilight--close below Jeb. In the
broadening daylight he could distinctly see their bronzed, immobile
faces; their swinging gait, suggesting abundant reserve power, and their
eyes that bespoke an utter disregard of dangers. They were men, second
to none in determination and reckless personal valor, who did not endure
hardship, but rode upon it; who did not work, without first laughing it
into play. If the sun was hot, they sweated good humor; and, if the sky
rained torrents, good humor trickled in rivulets down their backs. They
had learned to treat flying shells with contempt, except when any of
their comrades fell--and then a cold fury would burst amidst their
ranks, exploding, not into tears, but oaths! Those oaths!--snapped
barkingly from mouth to mouth while death was bursting right and left
and overhead, and bayonets were fixing for a greater toll!

Jeb felt, with an uncanny sense of prophecy, that in this marching line
was depicted a new phase of man growing out of war. The individual
preferment which many of them enjoyed four years ago had thinned to
nothingness in the welding of this great warrior-force of comrades, who
never again would quite resume their former status. For, when a clubman
eats and sleeps and jokes and fights beside the waiter who used to bring
his cocktail, he learns to love that man, and the love is mutual; when a
millionaire is dragged to shelter by the husky grocer's boy who used to
leave a basket at his kitchen door, he also loves that boy, and the boy
loves him. Each finds in the other values which are not measured by
worldly goods, or the stamp of birth, or family influence; each sees in
the naked soul of each truer riches which transcend what formerly had
been false. And thus, in the armies of those supermen who after the war
march home to lasting peace, the stamp of aristocracy will be the
Aristocracy of Worth. It was many months before Jeb realized that,
almost unconsciously, he had read this prophecy in the fire of
death-dealing shells.

Again the range lifted, this time past a hamlet that stood in partial
ruins on a hill. It had been spared complete destruction at German
hands, doubtless because the enemy had left it hurriedly, and n