ruling classes
that want the proletariat to--"

"Fire away, Stransky! It's hours since you made a speech!" chirruped a
voice.

"Look out, Bert, the sergeant's coming!" another voice warned the
orator.

The state of mind of the 53d was that of all the regiments of the Browns
with their faces toward the white posts, quiet, thoughtful, and grave;
for they had not to arouse ardor for the aggressive. As they were to
receive rather than give blows they might be more honest with themselves
than the men of the Grays.

In marching order, with cartridge-boxes full, on Saturday night the 53d
marched out to the main pass road. When Grandfather Fragini found that
he had been ordered to remain behind he sought the colonel.

"I've got reasons! Let me come!" he pleaded.

"No. It is no place for you."

"I can keep up! I can keep up! I feel like a boy!"

"But it is different these days, and this is the infantry. The bullets
carry far. You will not know how to take cover," the colonel explained.

"Well, if I am killed I won't be losing much time on this earth,"
grandfather observed with cool logic. "But that ain't it. I'm worried
about Tom. I'm afraid he ain't going to fight! I--I want to stiffen him
up!"

"He will fight, all right. Sorry, but it is out of the question," said
the colonel, turning away.

Grandfather buried his face in his hands and shook with the sobs of
second childhood until an idea occurred to him. Wasn't he a free man?
Hadn't he as much right as anybody to use the public highway? Drying his
eyes, he set out along the road in the wake of the regiment.

One company after another left the road at a given point, bound for the
position mapped in its instructions Dellarme's, however, went on until
it was opposite the Galland house.

"We are depending on you," the colonel said to Dellarme, giving his hand
a grip. "You are not to draw off till you get the flag."

"No, sir," Dellarme replied.

"Mind the signal to the batteries--keep the men screened--warn them not
to let their first baptism of shell fire shake their nerves!" the
colonel added in a final repetition of instructions already indelibly
impressed on the captain's mind.

Moving cautiously through a cut, Dellarme's company came, about
midnight, to a halt among the stubble of a wheat-field behind a knoll.
After he had bidden the men to break ranks, he crept up the incline.

"Yes, it's there!" he whispered when he returned. "On the crest of the
kn