guide them, Captain Maxey and his men went on up the
street. They took eight prisoners in one cellar, seventeen in
another. When the villagers saw the prisoners bunched together in
the square, they came out of their houses and gave information.
This cleaning up, Bert Fuller remarked, was like taking fish
from the Platte River when the water was low, simply pailing them
out! There was no sport in it.

At nine o'clock the officers were standing together in the square
before the church, checking off on the map the houses that had
been searched. The men were drinking coffee, and eating fresh
bread from a baker's shop. The square was full of people who had
come out to see for themselves. Some believed that deliverance
had come, and others shook their heads and held back, suspecting
another trick. A crowd of children were running about, making
friends with the soldiers. One little girl with yellow curls and
a clean white dress had attached herself to Hicks, and was eating
chocolate out of his pocket. Gerhardt was bargaining with the
baker for another baking of bread. The sun was shining, for a
change,--everything was looking cheerful. This village seemed to
be swarming with girls; some of them were pretty, and all were
friendly. The men who had looked so haggard and forlorn when dawn
overtook them at the edge of the town, began squaring their
shoulders and throwing out their chests. They were dirty and
mud-plastered, but as Claude remarked to the Captain, they
actually looked like fresh men.

Suddenly a shot rang out above the chatter, and an old woman in a
white cap screamed and tumbled over on the pavement,--rolled
about, kicking indecorously with both hands and feet. A second
crack,--the little girl who stood beside Hicks, eating chocolate,
threw out her hands, ran a few steps, and fell, blood and brains
oozing out in her yellow hair. The people began screaming and
running. The Americans looked this way and that; ready to dash,
but not knowing where to go. Another shot, and Captain Maxey fell
on one knee, blushed furiously and sprang up, only to fall
again,--ashy white, with the leg of his trousers going red.

"There it is, to the left!" Hicks shouted, pointing. They saw
now. From a closed house, some distance down a street off the
square, smoke was coming. It hung before one of the upstairs
windows. The Captain's orderly dragged him into a wineshop.
Claude and David, followed by the men, ran down the street and
bro