-and that was wonderfully little. We
had to nurse and bandage our feet as best we could, and
march--march--march! He had a definite plan, for he led unhesitatingly, but
he would not tell us the plan. He was stern when we begged for
longer rests, merciless toward the ammunition bearers, silent at all
times unless compelled to give orders or correct us. Most of the
time he kept Tugendheim marching beside him, and Tugendheim, I
think, began to regard him with quite peculiar respect; for he
admired resolution.

Most of us felt that our last day of marching was upon us, for we
were ready to drop when we skirted a village at about noon on the
eighth day and saw in the distance a citadel perched on a rocky hill
above the sky-line. We were on flat land, but there was a knoll
near, and to that Ranjoor Singh led us, and there he let us lie. He,
weary as we but better able to overcome, drew out his map and spread
it, weighting the four corners with stones; and he studied it chin
on hand for about five minutes, we watching him in silence.

"That," said he, standing at last and pointing toward the distant
citadel, "is Angora. Yonder" (he made a sweeping motion) "runs the
railway whose terminus is at Angora. There are many long roads
hereabouts, so that the place has become a depot for food and stores
that the Turks plunder and the Germans despatch over the railway to
the coast. The railway has been taken over by the Germans."

"Are we to storm the town?" asked a trooper, and fifty men mocked
him. But Ranjoor Singh looked down kindly at him and gave him a word
of praise.

"No, my son," he said. "Yet if all had been stout enough to ask
that, I would have dared attempt it. No, we are perhaps a little
desperate, but not yet so desperate as that."

He began sweeping the horizon with his eyes, quartering the
countryside mile by mile, overlooking nothing. I saw him watch the
wheeling kites and look below them, and twice I saw him fix his gaze
for minutes at a time on one place.

"We will eat to-night!" he said at last. "Sleep," he ordered. "Lie
down and sleep until I summon you!" But he called me to his side and
kept me wakeful for a while yet.

"Look yonder," said he, and when I had gazed for about two minutes I
was aware of a column of men and animals moving toward the city. A
little enough column.

"How fast are they moving?" he asked me, and I gazed for several
minutes, reaching no decision. I said they were too far away, an