ff his leg."

"Yes, sir," replied Broussard. "You are not as badly off as General
Moreau, and I think I can help you, sir." Broussard proceeded to take
off the Colonel's boot and stocking. He rubbed the broken ankle with
snow and then, with his handkerchief and a splinter of wood, made a
bandage and splints, as soldiers are taught to do.

Then Broussard accepted the cigar offered him by the Colonel, and smoked
vigorously. A lieutenant does not lead the conversation with a Colonel,
and so Broussard said nothing more and devoted himself to keeping the
fire going.

Colonel Fortescue bore the pain, which was extreme, in grim silence, but
Broussard noticed that he stopped smoking and threw away his cigar. It
could not soothe him as it did General Moreau. Broussard immediately
threw away his cigar, too, which annoyed the Colonel.

"Why don't you keep on smoking?" asked the Colonel tartly.

"Oh, I don't care about it particularly," shamelessly answered Broussard,
who was an inveterate smoker.

"When we got out of tobacco in the jungle I kept the men quiet by singing
the old song ''Twas Off the Blue Canaries I Smoked My Last Cigar.'"

"Music has always had a soothing influence over me," said Colonel
Fortescue, after a moment. "Suppose you sing that song. It may help
this infernal ankle of mine."

Broussard obeyed orders immediately, and the old song was sung with all
the feeling that Broussard could infuse into his fine, rich voice. When
it was over, the Colonel said sternly:

"Sing another song. Keep on singing until I tell you to quit."

Broussard, being a sly dog, did not sing any of the modern songs that he
was wont to troll out at the club, or on the march, but chose for his
second number a song that subalterns sang to pianos, to banjos and
guitars, and even without accompaniment, the favorite song of the
subaltern, "A Warrior Bold." Broussard's clear baritone, sweet and
ringing, echoed among the icy cliffs in the wintry dusk. At the end,
Colonel Fortescue nodded his head in approval.

"I used to sing that song," he said, "when I was a youngster, but I never
had a fine voice like yours. Tune up again."

Broussard tuned up again, and this time it was a sweet old sentimental
ballad. He went conscientiously through his repertory of old-fashioned
ballads, not smiling in the least, Colonel Fortescue listening gravely to
these songs of love. The purple twilight was coming on fast and the
ruddy glare