with bayonets, he calmly
decided to shoot the last man first, and to continue this policy in
selecting his mark, so that those remaining would "not see their
comrades falling and in panic stop and fire a volley at him."

Military critics analyzing the tactics York used in this fight have been
able to find no superior way for removing the menace of the German
machine guns that were over the crest of the hill and between him and
his regiment, than to form the prisoners he had captured in a column,
put the officers in front and march directly to each machine gun-nest,
compelling the German officers to order the gunners to surrender and to
take their place in line.

Calm and self-controlled, with hair of copper-red and face and neck
browned and furrowed by the sun and mountain winds, enured to hardships
and ready for them, this young mountaineer moved among his new-found
companions at Camp Gordon. Reticent he seemed, but his answer to an
inquiry was direct, and his quiet blue-eyes never shifted from the eyes
of the man who addressed him. As friendships were formed, his moods were
noted by his comrades. At times he was playful as a boy, using
cautiously, even gently, the strength he possessed. Then again he would
remain, in the midst of the sports, thoughtful, and as tho he were
troubled.

Back in the mountains he had but little opportunity to attend school,
and his sentences were framed in the quaint construction of his people,
and nearly all of them were ungrammatical. There were many who would
have regarded him as ignorant. By the standards that hold that education
is enlightenment that comes from acquaintance with books and that wisdom
is a knowledge of the ways of the world, he was. But he had a training
that is rare; advantages that come to too few.

From his father he inherited physical courage; from his mother, moral
courage. And both of them spent their lives developing these qualities
of manhood in their boy. His father hiked him through the mountains on
hunts that would have stoutened the heart of any man to have kept the
pace. And he never tolerated the least evidence of fear of man or beast.
He taught his boy to so live that he owed apology or explanation to no
man.

While I was at Pall Mall, one of his neighbors, speaking of Alvin, said:

"Even as a boy he had his say and did his do, and never stopped to
explain a statement or tell what prompted an act. Left those to stand
for themselves."

And the li