attle of wits
and spies against Lanstron, came, two hours before Westerling was due,
the last of the staff except Westerling and his personal aide had
arrived Bouchard, with his iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, strong,
aquiline nose, and hawk-like eyes, his mouth hidden by a bristly
mustache, was lean and saturnine, and he was loyal. No jealous thought
entered his mind at having to serve a man younger than himself. He did
not serve a personality; he served a chief of staff and a profession.
The score of words which escaped him as he looked over the arrangements
were all of directing criticism and bitten off sharply, as if he
regretted that he had to waste breath in communicating even a thought.

"I tell nothing, but you tell me everything!" said Bouchard's hawk eyes.
He was old-fashioned; he looked his part, which was one of the many
points of difference between him and Lanstron as a chief of
intelligence.

After he had gone through the house he went for a flyspecking tour of
the grounds, where he came upon a private of the Grays on crutches. With
rest and good food the tiny hole in Hugo's leg from the merciful
small-calibre bullet had healed rapidly. Confinement was irksome on a
sunny day. He had grown strong enough in spirit to face his fate,
whatever it might be, and in the absence of the watchful coachman he had
risked the delight of a convalescent's adventure in the open, clad in
his uniform, the only clothes he had. Bouchard saw instantly that this
private did not wear the insignia of staff service.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Getting well of a wound," answered Hugo, looking frankly into the hawk
eyes.

"Evidently!" said Bouchard, who was always irritated when told what he
could see for himself. "Why aren't you at a hospital?"

"I was not wanted there!" said Hugo.

"What! what!" But Bouchard had wasted two words. "Your name and
regiment?" he asked.

"Hugo Mallin, of the 128th," replied Hugo.

"Uh-h!" Bouchard's pigeonhole memory had retained the name.
"Charge--mutiny under fire; anarchism!" he went on, chopping out the
words as if they were chips from a piece of granite. "Well, you have not
escaped trial by hiding."

"I did not flatter myself that with one leg against a whole army I had
much chance, sir!" Hugo replied respectfully.

"Uh-h!" The hawk eyes flashed their disapproval of such controversial
freedom of language from a private. Had he had his way he would have
hanged Hugo to the