Red Fleece

g but earth poundage and earth power, a game that had much to do with earth and not with heaven. Seven quiet days of marching in splendid summer weather, the raw peasa

to make men light for heavy work; to give them a taste of the joy and the true health of the field-before the entrainments, the haste and the fighting; but the psychological purpose was to

" as yet; it had to set, required frequent wettings of fine humor and affiliation. The marvel to Mowbray was that the thousands fell for it. They had practically all left something that was life and death to them-land, labor, women, ch

a citizenship and virtue that would change the world. Instead they were to be impregnated wi

re treated well, and regarded as guests by the staff officers. Peter had met Kohlvihr in Warsaw before the thought of war-a good-tempered, if dull and bibulous old man, he had

e extraordinary nature of Berthe Wyndham would flood home to him, as to one to whom it belonged, very dear but very far.... He would smile when he thought of The States and the Old Man.... "He thinks I'm clutched in the ripping drama and waiting for blood," he mutte

most part in a better state of preparation than Kohlvihr's division. Rumors reached the staff, as they neared the Galician border, that the Austrian fields below were already bleedi

the starlight. He sat so still that Peter slipped out from the blankets (which covered Boylan as well) and took his place beside the lens-maker. Spenski was facing the east. The st

e nearly morning, for those are the winter stars. I

s. They are more brillian

of suns stood out with

at huge W befor

ia? Her chair isn't ther

he Dog-star; up to Betelguese, down to the left again to Procyon,

didn't notice. Your stranger is the planet Saturn in transit betwe

sibly," s

from Boylan: "Come on bac

" the little man whispered, "that the

rk.... A day and night of intolerable slowness in a vile coach, and on the following noon the troop-train was halted, while a string of Red Cross

than the immediate faces of men. Mowbray could not articulate. Above all he wanted to meet her eyes, to put back the light of the present in them, but it was neither sound nor gesture that accomplished it; rather the storming intensity of a

o the mystery of their first meeting. It was like an awakening to the rack of thirst after one has dreamed of a spring of

oking deeply

ou're a ghost. Wh

nload of girls down here in the f

women can do that to you-here's h

een the outstretched hands, a