f irretrievable disaster. To the last they counted
among the most active, the least demoralized of the battalion; their
vigorous vitality invested them both with the appearance of an heroic
pair in the eyes of their comrades. And they never exchanged more than
a casual word or two, except one day, when skirmishing in front of the
battalion against a worrying attack of cavalry, they found themselves
cut off in the woods by a small party of Cossacks. A score of
fur-capped, hairy horsemen rode to and fro, brandishing their lances
in ominous silence; but the two officers had no mind to lay down their
arms, and Colonel Feraud suddenly spoke up in a hoarse, growling voice,
bringing his firelock to the shoulder. "You take the nearest brute,
Colonel D'Hubert; I'll settle the next one. I am a better shot than you
are."

Colonel D'Hubert nodded over his levelled musket. Their shoulders were
pressed against the trunk of a large tree; on their front enormous
snowdrifts protected them from a direct charge. Two carefully aimed
shots rang out in the frosty air, two Cossacks reeled in their saddles.
The rest, not thinking the game good enough, closed round their wounded
comrades and galloped away out of range. The two officers managed to
rejoin their battalion halted for the night. During that afternoon they
had leaned upon each other more than once, and towards the end, Colonel
D'Hubert, whose long legs gave him an advantage in walking through
soft snow, peremptorily took the musket of Colonel Feraud from him and
carried it on his shoulder, using his own as a staff.

On the outskirts of a village half buried in the snow an old wooden
barn burned with a clear and an immense flame. The sacred battalion
of skeletons, muffled in rags, crowded greedily the windward side,
stretching hundreds of numbed, bony hands to the blaze. Nobody had
noted their approach. Before entering the circle of light playing on the
sunken, glassy-eyed, starved faces, Colonel D'Hubert spoke in his turn:

"Here's your musket, Colonel Feraud. I can walk better than you."

Colonel Feraud nodded, and pushed on towards the warmth of the fierce
flames. Colonel D'Hubert was more deliberate, but not the less bent on
getting a place in the front rank. Those they shouldered aside tried
to greet with a faint cheer the reappearance of the two indomitable
companions in activity and endurance. Those manly qualities had never
perhaps received a higher tribute than this feeble