r after rats."

"He knows what he is doing. He sees so far ahead of what we are thinking
that it's useless to guess his object. We'll understand when it's done."

"How little side he has! So perfectly simple. He hardly seems to realize
the immensity of his success. In fact, none of us realizes it; it's too
enormous, overwhelming, sudden!"

"And no nerves!"

"No nerves, did you say? There you are wrong. Did you see that hand
twitching in his pocket? Of course, you've heard about the hand? Why,
he's a bundle of nerve-wires held in control; a man of the age; master
of his own machine, therefore, able to master the machine of an army."

Of course, they guessed nothing of Marta's part in his success. The very
things they were saying about him built up a figure of the type whose
character she had keenly resented a few minutes before.

"But, Miss Galland, you seem to know him far better than we. This is not
news to you," remarked the brigade commander.

"Yes, I saw the accident of his first flight when his hand was injured,"
she said, and winced with horror. Never had the picture of him as he
rose from the wreck appeared so distinct. She could see every detail of
his looks; feel his twinges of pain while he smiled. Was the revelation
the more vivid because it had not once occurred to her since the war
began? It shut out the presence of the officers; she no longer heard
what they were saying. Black fear was enveloping her. Vaguely she
understood that they were looking away at something. She heard the roar
of artillery not far distant and followed their gaze toward the knoll
where Dellarme's men had received their baptism of fire, now under a
canopy of shrapnel smoke.

"That's about their last stand in the tangent, their last snarl on our
soil," remarked the brigade commander.

"And we're raining shells on it!" said his aide. "With our glasses we'll
be able to watch the infantry go in."

"Yes, very well."

"We're all used to how it feels, now we'll see how it looks at a
distance," piped one of the soldiers.

Not until he had shouted to them did they notice a division
staff-officer who had come up from the road. He had a piece of
astounding news to impart before he mentioned official business.

"What do you think of this?" he cried. "Nothing could stop him!
Lanstron--yes, Lanstron has gone into that charge with the African
Braves!"

In these days, when units of a vast army in the same uniform, drilled in
the sam