were other threes zigzagging
onward. But always she was in their front--steadily, carefully, almost
to where the battery of six pieces had fixed a point to reach her, as
she passed. There her three dropped and dug. And there they rested until
the battery lost them. Up then and out again till the gunners once more
noted her like a moving lump of earth and corrected their elevation in
her favor. And so twice more. At the last she dared to look back. Behind
her stretched two lines of trenches. In the nearest a little fringe of
rifle muzzles already showed. She had brought these there. Further back
was a thin line of blue racing for the first trenches. She had set these
going. Still further back the army in vast masses of blue was moving
into position from behind the willows on the bank of the river.

And these waited also upon the little sun-flag on which Hoshiko lay. She
felt for the first time the soldier's ecstasy, and she understood better
and forgave more the latter years of Arisuga.

She and her two had rested, and had made of their chain of holes a
shallow trench. They meant to dig this deeper for those who were to come
after them. But the two vast armies they had set in motion began to move
with accelerated speed toward each other, and they stopped the trench
where it was.

There would be no more digging. Any one might see that. The Russian
battery had again found them. One of the guns was exploding shrapnel
over their heads. The rest were trying for the thin blue line further
back. The willows which yet hid the army were too far away. The moment
was ripe. Hoshiko threw aside the spade and everything else which might
impede action, and went toward the battery.

From behind her rose the hoarse mongolian yell she had learned to love.
There was no need now for concealment. Their own guns had located the
battery in her front. A wicked shell had just burst over it. She could
hear the song of the fragments. And but three men stood by the gun
afterward. The little figure with the sun-flag raced down upon them,
firing. It was quite alone. The three gave her a weak, magnanimous cheer
and retired, leaving their gun.

Her own men answered from the rear. And even amid the "Banzais" she
could hear the wild song of Arisuga. One line clanged in her mad
brain:--

"Death-wound spurting--"

Further up the hill a single rapid-fire gun which knew her only as an
enemy came into action. It found her at once and riddled her w