woman's tormentors before his train came in. Leaving his
bags with her, he crossed the railroad tracks, guided by an
occasional teasing tinkle of the bell in the cornfield. Presently
he came upon the gang, a dozen or more, lying in a shallow draw
that ran from the edge of the field out into an open pasture. He
stood on the edge of the bank and looked down at them, while he
slowly cut off the end of a cigar and lit it. The boys grinned at
him, trying to appear indifferent and at ease.

"Looking for any one, soldier?" asked the one with the bell.

"Yes, I am. I'm looking for that bell. You'll have to take it
back where it belongs. You every one of you know there's no harm
in that old woman."

"She's a German, and we're fighting the Germans, ain't we?"

"I don't think you'll ever fight any. You'd last about ten
minutes in the American army. You're not our kind. There's only
one army in the world that wants men who'll bully old women. You
might get a job with them."

The boys giggled. Claude beckoned impatiently. "Come along with
that bell, kid."

The boy rose slowly and climbed the bank out of the gully. As
they tramped back through the cornfield, Claude turned to him
abruptly. "See here, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Oh, I don't know about that!" the boy replied airily, tossing
the bell up like a ball and catching it.

"Well, you ought to be. I didn't expect to see anything of this
kind until I got to the front. I'll be back here in a week, and
I'll make it hot for anybody that's been bothering her." Claude's
train was pulling in, and he ran for his baggage. Once seated in
the "cotton-tail," he began going down into his own country,
where he knew every farm he passed,--knew the land even when he
did not know the owner, what sort of crops it yielded, and about
how much it was worth. He did not recognize these farms with the
pleasure he had anticipated, because he was so angry about the
indignities Mrs. Voigt had suffered. He was still burning with
the first ardour of the enlisted man. He believed that he was
going abroad with an expeditionary force that would make war
without rage, with uncompromising generosity and chivalry.

Most of his friends at camp shared his Quixotic ideas. They had
come together from farms and shops and mills and mines, boys from
college and boys from tough joints in big cities; sheepherders,
street car drivers, plumbers' assistants, billiard markers.
Claude had seen hundreds of t