of the bullets
with bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive against
walls. It was of no use to batter themselves against granite. And
from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an
unconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been
betrayed. They glowered with bent brows, but dangerously, upon some of
the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one with the voice
of triple brass.

However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men, who continued
to shoot irritably at the advancing foes. They seemed resolved to make
every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the
disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had been
shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would
cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping
gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power.

The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet. He kept watchful
eyes rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. He
had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him
and his fellows as mule drivers. But he saw that it could not come to
pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule drivers, dwindling
rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had
recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shame
to him.

A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held toward
the enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man, who, not
knowing him, had called him a mule driver.

When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in
successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse
upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess
him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithets
unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So
grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right
to taunt truly in answer.

He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. "We ARE mule drivers,
are we?" And now he was compelled to throw them away.

He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the
flag erect. He harangued his fellows, pushing against their chests
with his free hand. To those he knew well he made frantic appeals,
beseeching them by name. Between him and the lieutenant, scol