The Last Shot

to the lawn, where they became motionless figures, screening their eyes with their hands. The newest and most wonderful thing in the world at the time was this

e very direction of the speck's flight a spur of foot-hills extended into the plain that stretched away to the Gray range, distinct at the distance of

iver. On its way to the pass of the Brown range it skirted the garden of the Gallands, which rose in terraces to a seventeenth-century house overlooking the old town from its outskirts. They were such a town, such a road, such a land

ing all inanimate things. If the castle walls were covered with hoar frost, she said that the baron was shivering; if the wind tore around the tower, she said that t

pass was to hold the range. All the blood shed there would make a red river, inundating the plain. Marta, a maker of pictures, saw how the legions, brown, sinewy, lean aliens, looked in their close ranks. They were no less real to her imagination than the infantry o

n-all the weapons of all stages in the art of war-had gone trooping past. Now ha

rta would say. "And what a parvenu the baro

ould reply. "Marta, how your mind does wander! I'd get a headache jus

of the baron in that he could read and write, though with difficulty. Marta had an idea that he was not presentable at a tea-table; however, he must have been more so

llands were rooted in the soil of the frontier; they were used to having war's hot breath blow past their door; they were at home in the language and customs of two pe

eanwhile, there was the horizon. She was particularly fond of looking at it. If you are seventeen, with a fancifu

he had scattered coins among barbarian children; that Napoleon, who had also gone over the pass road, was a pompous, fat little man, who did not always wipe his upper lip clean of snuff when

understood them. If the first Galland were half a robber, to disguise the fact becau

-hour breaking a long walk, a relief from garrison surroundings. Favored in mind and person, favored in high places, he had become a colonel at thirty-two. People with fixed ideas as to the appearance of a soldier said that he looked every inch the comma

he defined vaguely as girlish piquancy. He found it amusing to try to answer her unusual questi

e came to the edge of the veranda, he wondered what she would be like five years later, when she would be twenty-two and a woman. It was unlikely that he would ever kno

; he was going to the general staff at the capital. Mrs. G

ies of the great war machi

exactly!"

ging curves of emotion. Her large, dark eyes, luminously deep under long lashes, if not the rest of her face, had beauty. Her head was bent, the lashes forming a line with her brow now, and her eyes had the still flame of wonder that they had when she was looking all around a thing and through it to find wh

f staff, the head of the Gray

had been surprised in a secr

ssness. "Your reasons? They're mor

thout emphasis, in the impersonal revelations

ulded head set close to the shoulders on a sturdy neck, his e

plosive," Mrs. Galland remarke

f-and it is not a bad compliment," he replied.

ngs, and its lingering satisfaction disappeared only with Marta's cry at sight of the speck in t

ne! Hurry!"

st time they were seeing the new wonder in all the fascination of novelty to us mo

straight for your tower, baron! You'd better pull up the drawbr

oaring wings with a human atom in its centre, Captain Arthur Lanstron, already called a fool

rowns, who was looking on, to keep in a circle close to the ground. But he was doing so well that he thought he would try rising a little higher. When the levers responded with the ease of a bird's wings, temptation

were to march along the pass road they would be as visible as a cloud in the sky. Yes, here was revolution in detecting the enemy's plans! He had become momentarily unconscious of the swiftness of his progress, thanks to its hypnotic facility. He was in the danger which to

us magic!"

Westerling critically. "It makes a steady target at that

arta and Mrs. G

the lap of a steady wind, dip far over, careen back in the other direction, and then the whirring noise that had grown with its flight c

s observant imperturbability that of satisfaction that the machine was the

ot wait on the catastrophe. She was living the part of the aviator more vividly than he, with his hand and mind occupied. She rushed down the terrace steps wildly, as if her going and her

wall could be seen the shoulders of a young officer, a streak of red coursing down his cheek, rising from the wreck. An inarticulate sob of relief broke from Marta's throat, followed by quic

e!" he said. "And I'm alive. I managed to hold h

the damage to his person. He got one foot free of the wreck and that leg was all right. She s

hand-oh, y

rves numbed, he had not as yet felt any pain from the injury. Now he rega

ain!" he muttered

ust the disgusting thing behind his back and t

kerchief!" she begged. "I'm not goi

g arrived and joined Marta in offers of assistance just as they heard the prolonged hon

for me," said Lanstron to Weste

t of the torn cloth over some apparatus to hide it. At this Westerling smiled faintly. Then Lanstron saluted

with the pain that he could not control, while his rather bold forehead and delicate, sensitive features suggested a man of nerve and nerves who might have left experiments in a laboratory for an adventure in the air. There was a kind of challenge in their glances; the chall

last second," said Westerling, passing a compliment across the white

me, isn't it?" Lanstron replied, his voi

turned to the group of three officers and a civilian who alighted from a big Brown army automobile as if he

an of late middle age, rather affectionately and teasingly. He wore a single order on h

hering. My mind was off duty for a second and I got a lesson in self-control at the expense of the machine. I treated it worse than it deserved, an

" said the doctor. He and another officer

es straightaway!" remarked the civilian, making a cursory examinati

eld-marshal, and at sight of Mrs. Galland paused

the doctor. He was not one to let rank awe him when duty

inging into the car. "No more wool-gathering, eh?" he said, giving Lan

im with big, sympathetic eyes. "I am coming back soon and land i

she cried, as

Partow, their chief of

before the last war, before he had won the iron cross and become so great

Westerling. "But apparently he is keen enoug

ng and-and terribl

r raging on the pass road. "Lanstron, the young man said his name was," she resumed after

to give in-that wa

en engrossed in his ow

lad to take a risk of that kind. The thing is," and his fingers pressed in on the palm of hi

ned war to an officer of the Grays; it was not at all in the accepted proprieties. But

out breaking eggs," Westerlin

ed that it was a favorite expression of the fat, pompou

. It was a corroboration of her prophecy. The baro

theme of her prophecy, which the meeting with Lanstron had quickened. "But war will, as ever,

Mrs. Galland and Marta back to the hous

soldier!" Marta burst out as she an

been, even if the colonel had been younger, say, of Captain Lanstron's age. Though an officer was an officer, whether of the Browns or the Grays, and, perforce, a gentleman to be received with the politeness of a common caste, every beat of her heart was loyal to her race. Her daughter's hand was not for a