ull length of a ball-room.
But the men's spirits improved as soon as the enemy--this mysterious
enemy--became a tangible thing, and far off. They had believed the foe
to be shooting at them from the adjacent garden.

"Now," said the sergeant ambitiously, "we can beat them off easily if
you men are good enough."

A man called out in a tone of quick, great interest. "See that fellow on
horseback, Bill? Isn't he on horseback? I thought he was on horseback."

There was a fusilade against another side of the house. The sergeant
dashed into the room which commanded that situation. He found a dead
soldier on the floor. He rushed out howling: "When was Knowles killed?
When was Knowles killed? Damn it, when was Knowles killed?" It was
absolutely essential to find out the exact moment this man died. A
blackened private turned upon his sergeant and demanded: "How in hell do
I know?" Sergeant Morton had a sense of anger so brief that in the next
second he cried: "Patterson!" He had even forgotten his vital interest
in the time of Knowles' death.

"Yes?" said Patterson, his face set with some deep-rooted quality of
determination. Still, he was a mere farm boy.

"Go in to Knowles' window and shoot at those people," said the sergeant
hoarsely. Afterwards he coughed. Some of the fumes of the fight had made
way to his lungs.

Patterson looked at the door into this other room. He looked at it as if
he suspected it was to be his death-chamber. Then he entered and stood
across the body of Knowles and fired vigorously into a group of plum
trees.

"They can't take this house," declared the sergeant in a contemptuous
and argumentative tone. He was apparently replying to somebody. The man
who had been shot in the throat looked up at him. Eight men were firing
from the windows. The sergeant detected in a corner three wounded men
talking together feebly. "Don't you think there is anything to do?" he
bawled. "Go and get Knowles' cartridges and give them to somebody who
can use them! Take Simpson's too." The man who had been shot in the
throat looked at him. Of the three wounded men who had been talking, one
said: "My leg is all doubled up under me, sergeant." He spoke
apologetically.

Meantime the sergeant was re-loading his rifle. His foot slipped in the
blood of the man who had been shot in the throat, and the military boot
made a greasy red streak on the floor.

"Why, we can hold this place," shouted the sergeant jubilantly. "Who
s