rk here.
If you don't, I shall shoot you, just as I would shoot a dog. There is
no time to talk. Get to work! You hear what I tell you. Turn this
man!"

Velo shudderingly put himself to the horrid task of lifting the
bleeding and torn body. Zaidos talked as he worked in a deep, earnest
tone that carried to Velo's ears even in the noise of battle.

"I'm going to be after you every minute, Velo Kupenol! You won't
disgrace me if I can help it. Go get your stretcher. If you drop it I
will kill you!"

He spoke so fiercely, and with such meaning, that Velo felt that for
once his easy-going cousin had the upper hand.

As the doctor had said, they were suffering for lack of help, so Zaidos
could not afford to let the coward run away. He _had_ to have
assistance if he was to save some of the lives which he felt were in a
measure entrusted to him. So Velo had to be used. He stopped the gush
of blood from a dozen wounds and, lifting on one end of the stretcher,
ordered Velo, with a nod of his head, to lead on toward the First Aid
Station.

Almost immediately they had the wounded man on the table, and again
were off. The guns roared. Shrapnel dropped and exploded, or exploded
in air. Overhead Zaidos was conscious that the duel in the clouds
still went warily on, but he could not give it a glance. He lost all
track of time. He saw others with the Red Cross badge, working,
working with the same feverish haste with which he kept at his task. A
sort of dreadful haze came over him. He labored with desperate haste,
with strong certainty and sureness of touch, but he seemed to feel
nothing of human anguish or human sympathy. He was a machine set in
motion by the pressing needs of battle, and he went on and on in a
haze. Men died in his arms or were transported to the First Aid where
the doctors and Nurse Helen worked with incredible swiftness and skill.

He did not speak to Helen, nor did she notice him. Velo, still pale,
kept doggedly at his task, only an occasional gleam of hatred lighting
his eyes when he had to look at his fearless cousin. He was more than
ever like a treacherous dog, watching, always watching for its chance
for a throat-hold.

And somehow, without a spoken word, the thing became clear to Zaidos.
All at once he knew how deeply and utterly his cousin hated him. He
knew as well as if Velo had shouted it aloud that he meant to be the
instrument of his death in some way or other, sooner or