health. I am
an old man. I could not do this alone."

Which was true, for D'Arragon was carrying all the baggage now.

"We must both keep our health," answered Louis. "I have eaten worse
things than horse."

"I saw one yesterday," said Barlasch, with a gesture of disgust; "he
had three stripes on his arm, too; he was crouching in a ditch eating
something much worse than horse, mon capitaine. Bah! It made me sick.
For three sous I would have put my heel on his face. And later on at the
roadside I saw where he or another had played the butcher. But you saw
none of these things, mon capitaine?"

"It was by that winding stream where a farm had been burnt," said Louis.

Barlasch glanced at him sideways.

"If we should come to that, mon capitaine...."

"We won't."

They trudged on in silence for some time. They were off the road now,
and D'Arragon was steering by dead-reckoning. Even amid the pine-woods,
which seemed interminable, they frequently found remains of an
encampment. As often as not they found the campers huddled over their
last bivouac.

"But these," said Barlasch, pointing to what looked like a few bundles
of old clothes, continuing the conversation where he had left it after a
long silence, as men learn to do who are together day and night in some
hard enterprise, "even these have a woman dinning the ears of the good
God for them, just as we have."

For Barlasch's conception of a Deity could not get further than the
picture of a great Commander who in times of stress had no leisure to
see that non-commissioned officers did their best for the rank and file.
Indeed, the poor in all lands rather naturally conclude that God will
think of carriage-people first.

They came within sight of Kowno one evening, after a tiring day over
snow that glittered in a cloudless sun. Barlasch sat down wearily
against a pine tree, when they first caught sight of a distant
church-tower. The country is much broken up into little valleys
here, through which streams find their way to the Niemen. Each river
necessitated a rapid descent and an arduous climb over slippery snow.

"Voila," said Barlasch. "That is Kowno. I am done. Go on, mon capitaine.
I will lie here, and if I am not dead to-morrow morning, I will join
you."

Louis looked at him with a slow smile.

"I am tired as you," he said. "We will rest here until the moon rises."

Already the bare larches threw shadows three times their own length on
the snow. Near