d pine board mess
tables at which they had sat listening and taking notes, the eyes
of the colonel's subordinate officers glistened with enthusiasm.
Instead of showing any trace of dissent they greeted their commanding
officer's words with a low murmur of approval that grew into a
noisy demonstration, then turned into three rousing cheers.

"And a tiger!" shouted a young lieutenant, in a bull-like voice
that was heard over the racket.

Colonel Cleaves, though he did not unbend much before the tumult,
permitted a gleam of satisfaction to show itself in his fine,
rugged features.

"Good!" he said quietly, in a firm voice. "I feel assured that
we shall all pull together for the common weal and for the abiding
glory of American arms."

Gathering up the papers that he had, during his speech, laid out
on the table before him, the colonel stepped briskly down the
central aisle of the mess-room. As it was a confidential meeting
of regimental officers, and no enlisted man was present, one of
the second lieutenants succeeded in being first to reach the door.
Throwing it open, he came smartly to attention, saluting as the
commanding officer passed through the doorway. Then the door
closed.

"Good!" cried Captain Dick Prescott. "That was straight talk
all the way through."

"Hit the mark or leave the regiment!" voiced Captain Greg Holmes
enthusiastically.

"Be a one hundred per cent. officer, or get out of the service!"
agreed another comrade.

The tumult had already died down. The officers, from Lieutenant-Colonel
Graves down to the newest "shave-tail" or second lieutenant, acted
as by common impulse when they pivoted slowly about on their heels,
glancing at each other with earnest smiles.

"Gentlemen, our job has been cut out for us. We know the price
of success, and we know what failure would mean for us, personally
or collectively. Going over to quarters, Sands?"

Thrusting a hand through the arm of Major Sands, Lieutenant-Colonel
Graves started down the aisle. Little groups followed, and the
mess-room of that company barracks was speedily emptied.

Hard work, not age, had brought the gray frosting into the hair
of Colonel Cleaves; he was forty-seven years old, and not many
months before he had been only a major.

The time was early in September, in the year 1917. War had been
declared against Germany on April 6th. In the middle of July
the Ninety-o-ninth Infantry had been called into existence. Reg