and that held the paper trembled.

Admiral Togo's fleet was steaming, with decks cleared for action, off
Port Arthur--already a Japanese torpedo-boat flotilla had attacked and
battered the Russian cruisers that crouched like grim watchdogs at the
harbour's entrance--already the gray sea-monsters flying the sun-flag
had ripped out their cannonading challenge to the guns of the coast
batteries!

There had yet been no declaration of war--and the world, which had
wearied of the old story of unsuccessful treaty negotiations, rubbed
astonished eyes to learn that overnight a volcano of war had burst into
eruption--that lava-spilling for which the Empire of Nippon had been
building for a silent but determined decade.

Boone was late for his classes that day--and so distrait and inattentive
that his instructors thought he must be ill. To himself he was saying,
with that ardour that martial tidings bring to young pulses, "Why
couldn't he have taken me along with him?"

CHAPTER XXI

For Boone the approaching summer was no longer a period of zestful
anticipation. During that whole term he had looked eagerly ahead to
those coming months back in the hills, when with the guidance of his
wise friend he should plunge into the wholesome excitement of canvassing
his district.

Now McCalloway was gone. And just before commencement a letter from Anne
brought news that made his heart sink.

"Father is going home to England for the summer," she said,
"and that means that I won't get to the hills. I'm heartbroken
over it, and it isn't just that 'I always miss the hills,'
either. I do miss them. Every dogwood that I see blooming alone
in somebody's front yard, every violet in the grass, makes me
homesick for the places where beauty isn't only sampled but
runs riot--but there's a more personal note than that."

"You must climb old Slag-face for me, Boone, and write me all
about it. If a single tree has blown down, don't fail to tell
me, dear."

There was also another thing which would cloud his return to Marlin
County. He could, in decency, no longer defer a painful confession to
Happy. So far, chance had fended it off, but now she was back from the
settlement school for good, and he was through college. In justice to
her further silence could not be maintained.

Then May brought the Battle of the Yalu.

First there were only meagre newspaper reports--all that Boone saw
bef