tle Peterkin easily kept pace. There was no danger in
pursuit. In him was the same zest of the chase which Animated his
comrades. They dropped down on a ledge without much regard to order.
Before them, at close range, was a company breaking out of close order
in a _sauve-qui-peut_ rout up a reverse slope. It was not Dellarme's
company, but some other that had mistaken its direction and retired too
late and by the wrong road.

You will throw hand-grenades, will you? thought Fracasse's men. You will
mangle our fellows when they Can't strike back, will you? Now you'll
pay! Now it is our turn! We have seen our blood flow and now yours will
flow!

The lust of the red slipped the cartridge clips into the magazines and
held a true aim in the mad delight of slaughter. No one minded, for no
one heard--not even little Peterkin--the scattering bullets in return.
They had reached the stage where the objective thought of revenge wholly
submerged the subjective thought of personal danger, which is the mood
of the hungry tiger in the hunt. They were the veritable finished
products of veteran experience in purpose and marksmanship. Hugo, too,
was firing, but far over the head of every target; firing like a man in
a trance who needs some deciding incident to bring him out of it into
the part he was to play.

Only occasional figures who had not escaped over the ridge were to be
seen. The fewer the targets the greater the concentration. A whole
company was firing on a dozen straggling figures. But one--that one in
the pasture--seemed to have a charmed life. The ground around him was
peppered with dust spots. He had only a few yards more to go to safety;
yes his head--the exasperation of him!--was in line with the crest
before he fell.

Where was there any more prey? With ferret quickness eyes swept the
range of vision. Out of an orchard into the stubble of a wheat-field
broke a panicky mass; a score or more of men who had lost their officer
and their heads presumably. They were the nail under the hammer, a brown
blot, a target.

"Ah!" a chorus of excited exclamations in greeting of the game flushed
from cover ran along the line. Just the way you got our fellows with the
hand-grenades, we will get you! This was the thought, this the prayer
which they saw being fulfilled by the glad medley of their fire when
Hugo Mallin sprang up and threw down his rifle as if it were something
whose touch had become venomous. He threw it down with fe