pparently preoccupied with
many detached thoughts.

"And you to be at home sucking lollipops!" Pilzer growled to Hugo.

"That would be better than murdering my fellowman to get his property,"
Hugo answered, so soberly that it did not seem to his comrades that he
was joking this time. Pilzer's snarling exclamation of "White feather!"
came in the midst of a chorus of indignation.

Captain Fracasse, who had heard only the disturbance without knowing the
cause, interfered in a low, sharp tone:

"Silence! As I have told you before, silence! We don't want them to know
that we are here. Go to sleep! You may get no rest to-morrow night!"

But little Peterkin, the question in his mind breaking free of his lips,
unwittingly asked:

"Shall--shall we fight in the morning?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows!" answered Fracasse. "We wait on orders,
ready to do our duty. There may be no war. Don't let me hear another
peep from you!"

Now all closed their eyes. In front of them was vast silence which
seemed to stretch from end to end of the frontier, while to the rear was
the rumble of switching railway trains and the rumble of provision
trains and artillery on the roads, and in the distance on the plain the
headlight of a locomotive cut a swath in the black night. But the
breathing of most of the men was not that of slumber, though Eugene and
Pilzer slept soundly. Hours passed. Occasional restless movements told
of efforts to force sleep by changing position.

"It's the waiting that's sickening!" exploded the manufacturer's son
under his breath, desperately.

"So I say. I'd like to be at it and done with the suspense!" said the
doctor's son.

"They say if you are shot through the head you don't know what killed
you, it's so quick. Think of that!" exclaimed Peterkin, huddling closer
to Hugo and shivering.

"Yes, very merciful," Hugo whispered, patting Peterkin's arm.

"Sh-h-h! Silence, I tell you!" commanded Fracasse crossly. He was
falling into a half doze at last.

XVI

DELLARME'S MEN GET A MASCOT

And have you forgotten gigantic Private Stransky, born to the red, with
the hedgerows of the world his home? Have you forgotten Tom Fragini and
the sergeant and the others of Captain Dellarme's men of the 53d of the
Browns, whom we left marching along the road to La Tir, with old
Grandfather Fragini, veteran of the Hussars, in his faded uniform coat
with his medal on his breast, keeping step, hep-hep-hep?

Grandfa