Dellarme put Stransky's pack on his own back.

"Let me carry your rifle, too," he said to Stransky as they started.

"Not much!" answered Stransky. "I was just married to that rifle this
morning. We're on our honeymoon trip and getting fairly well acquainted,
and expect shortly to settle down to a busy domestic life."

He set off at a lope and gained the rear of the section in his first
burst of speed. As the other men got their second wind, however,
Stransky began to puff and they soon drew away from him.

"Put me down! I ain't going to depend on any traitor that insulted the
flag!" protested grandfather.

"That's the way! Call out to me now and then so I'll know you're there,"
said Stransky. "You're so light I mightn't know it if you fell off."

Dellarme did not think it right to expose the last section by asking it
to delay. Shepherd of his flock and miser of his pieces of gold, now
that their work was done the one thing he wanted in the world was that
they should escape without further punishment. Already the van of the
first section was disappearing into the cut in safety. But the fourth
section, which had held to the last, had yet a thousand yards to go over
a path bare of cover except a single small bush. At any moment he
expected to hear a cheer from the knoll, and what would follow the cheer
he knew only too well. Yet he tarried with Stransky out of one man's
impulse not to desert another in danger. At the same time he was wroth
with the old man for having made such a nuisance of himself.

"What are you waiting for?" Stransky demanded of Dellarme.

"I like good company," answered Dellarme cheerfully.

"Compliment for you, grandfather!" said Stransky.

"Put me down!" screamed grandfather.

"Still there, eh? Thanks, grandpop!" said Stransky, turning on
Dellarme. "Can't you run any faster than that, captain? Your place is
with your men, sir. If you got wounded I'd have to carry you, too. Your
company's gaining on you every minute. Hurry up!"

From the peremptory way that he spoke, Dellarme might have been the
private and Stransky the officer.

"Right!" said Dellarme in face of such unanswerable military logic, and
broke into a run.

Stransky adapted himself to a pace which he thought he could maintain,
and plodded on, eyes on the bush as a half-way point. After a while he
heard a mighty hurrah, which was cut short abruptly; then spits of dust
about their feet hastened the steps of the last section,