anders before, and were curious.
This one must be a good fighter, they thought; a brawny giant
with a bulldog jaw, and a face as red and knobby as his knees.
More because he admired the looks of the man than because he
needed information, Hicks went up and asked him if he had noticed
a military cemetery on the road back. The Kilt nodded.

"About how far back would you say it was?"

"I wouldn't say at all. I take no account of their kilometers,"
he replied dryly, rubbing away at his skirt as if he had it in a
washtub.

"Well, about how long will it take us to walk it?"

"That I couldn't say. A Scotsman would do it in an hour."

"I guess a Yankee can do it as quick as a Scotchman, can't be?"
Hicks asked jovially.

"That I couldn't say. You've been four years gettin' this far, I
know verra well."

Hicks blinked as if he had been hit. "Oh, if that's the way you
talk--"

"That's the way I do," said the other sourly.

Claude put out a warning hand. "Come on, Hicks. You'll get
nothing by it." They went up the road very much disconcerted.
Hicks kept thinking of things he might have said. When he was
angry, the Sergeant's forehead puffed up and became dark red,
like a young baby's. "What did you call me off for?" he
sputtered.

"I don't see where you'd have come out in an argument, and you
certainly couldn't have licked him."

They turned aside at the cemetery to wait until the sun went
down. It was unfenced, unsodded, and a wagon trail ran through
the middle, bisecting the square. On one side were the French
graves, with white crosses; on the other side the German graves,
with black crosses. Poppies and cornflower ran over them. The
Americans strolled about, reading the names. Here and there the
soldier's photograph was nailed upon his cross, left by some
comrade to perpetuate his memory a little longer.

The birds, that always came to life at dusk and dawn, began to
sing, flying home from somewhere. Claude and Hicks sat down
between the mounds and began to smoke while the sun dropped.
Lines of dead trees marked the red west. This was a dreary
stretch of country, even to boys brought up on the flat prairie.
They smoked in silence, meditating and waiting for night. On a
cross at their feet the inscription read merely: Soldat Inconnu,
Mort pour La France.

A very good epitaph, Claude was thinking. Most of the boys who
fell in this war were unknown, even to themselves. They were too
young. They died and took t