If Lanstron resigned he became chief.

"Partow might have this dream before he won, but would he now?" asked
the vice-chief. "No. He would go on!"

"Yes," said another officer. "The world will ridicule the suggestion;
our people will overwhelm us with their anger. The Grays will take it
for a sign of weakness."

"Not if we put the situation rightly to them," answered Lanstron. "Not
if we go to them as brave adversary to brave adversary, in a fair
spirit."

"We can--we shall take the range!" the vice-chief went on in a burst of
rigid conviction when he saw that opinion was with him. "Nothing can
stop this army now!" He struck the table edge with his fist, his
shoulders stiffening.

"Please--please, don't!" implored Marta softly. "It sounds so like
Westerling!"

The vice-chief started as if he had received a sharp pin-prick. His
shoulders unconsciously relaxed. He began a fresh study of a certain
point on the table top. Lanstron, looking first at one and then at
another, spoke again, his words as measured as they ever had been in
military discussion and eloquent. He began outlining his own message
which would go with Partow's to the premier, to the nation, to every
regiment of the Browns, to the Grays, to the world. He set forth why the
Browns, after tasting the courage of the Grays, should realize that they
could not take their range. Partow had not taught him to put himself in
other men's places in vain. The boy who had kept up his friendship with
engine-drivers after he was an officer knew how to sink the plummet into
human emotions. He reminded the Brown soldiers that there had been a
providential answer to the call of "God with us!" he reminded the people
of the lives that would be lost to no end but to engender hatred; he
begged the army and the people not to break faith with that principle of
"Not for theirs, but for ours," which had been their strength.

"I should like you all to sign it--to make it simply the old form of
'the staff has the honor to report,'" he said finally.

There was a hush as he finished--the hush of a deep impression when one
man waits for another to speak. All were looking at him except the
vice-chief, who was still staring at the table as if he had heard
nothing. Yet every word was etched on his mind. The man whose name was
the symbol of victory to the soldiers, who would be more than ever a
hero as the news of his charge with the African Braves travelled along
the lines, would g