who had become his loyal and devoted friend. The chaplain's face was
gaunt and thin, with hollow cheeks, but for all that, it wore a look of
serene detachment.

"Say, he looks awful tough," said a voice in Sergeant Mackay's ear.

Sergeant Mackay turned sharply around upon Fatty Matthews.

"Tough! Tough!" he exclaimed, with a choke in his voice. "You're a
damned liar, that's what you are. He looks fine. He looks fine," he
added again furiously. "He looks as if hell itself couldn't scare him."

In the sergeant's eyes strange lights were glistening.

"Yes, you're right, sergeant," said Fatty Matthews humbly. "You're
right, and that's where he's been, too, I guess."

Bravely and gallantly, with the historic and immortal "Cock o' the
North" shrilling out on the evening air, the pipers played them on to
the battalion parade ground, where they halted, silent still and with
that strange air of detached indifference still upon them. They had been
through hell. Nothing else could surprise them. All else, indeed, seemed
paltry.

Briefly, but with heart-reaching words, the colonel thanked the pipers
for what he called "an act of fine and brotherly courtesy." Then turning
to his men, he spoke a few words before dismissal.

"Men, you have passed through a long and hard time of testing. You have
not failed. I am not going to praise you, but I want you to know that
I am proud of you. Proud to be your commanding officer. I know that
whatever is before us, you will show the same spirit of endurance and
courage.

"We have lost this time twenty-nine men, eleven of them killed, and with
these three very brave and very gallant officers, among them our medical
officer, a very great loss to this battalion. These men did their duty
to the last. We loved them. We shall miss them, but to-day we are proud
of them. Let us give three cheers for our gallant dead."

With no joyous outburst, but with a note of fierce, strained
determination, came the cheers. In spite of all he could do, Barry could
not prevent a shudder as he heard the men about him cheering for those
whom he had so recently seen lying, some of them sorely mutilated, in
their grey blankets.

"Now, men," concluded the O. C., "we must 'carry on.' You will have a
couple of hours in which to clean up and have supper, and then we shall
have to-night a cinema show, to which I hope you will all come, and
which I hope you will all greatly enjoy."

The colonel's little speeches, a