Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-08-27
THE LAST SHOT
Bv FREDERICK PALMER
Copyright. 1914. by Charles scribner's Sons.

that she had seen; doubtless they
would be the last.
One or two afternoons q week Col
pnel Hedworth Westerling, commander
Of the regimental post of the Grays on
tho other side of the white posts,
stretched his privilege of crossing the
frontier and appeared for tea at the
Gallands. 1t meant q pleasant half
hour breaking q long walk, q relief
from garrison surroundings, and in
view of the order, received that morn
ing, this was to be farewell call.
He had found Mrs. Galland an agree
able reflection of an aristocratic past.
The daughter had what he defined
vaguely as girlish piquancy. He found
1T amusing to try to answer her un.
usual questions; he liked the variety
of her inventive mind, with its flashes
Of downright matter-of-factness
/ Not until tea was served did he men
ton his new assignment; he was going
to the general staff at the capital. Mrs.
Galland murmured her congratulations
in conventional fashion.
Marta's chair was drawn back from
the table. She leaned forward in a
favorite position of hers when she was
intensely interested, with hands
clasped over her knee, which her
mother always found aggravatingly
tomboyish. She had mass of lustrous
hot
in repose, but capable of changing
curves of emotion. Her large, dark
eyes, luminously deep under long
lashes, II not the rest of her face, had
beauty. Her head was bent, the
lashes forming line with her brow
now, and her eyes had the still fame
of wonder that they had when she
was looking all around a thing and
through it to find what it meant.
Some day you will be chief of staff,
the head of Gray army!" she suddenly
exclaimed.
Westerling started as If he had been
surprised in a secret. Then he flushed
slightly
"Why?" he asked with forced care
lessness. Your reasons? They're more
interesting than your prophecy"
Because you have the will to be-"
she said without emphasis, in the inn
personal revelations OF thought. You
want power. You have. ambition"
He looked the picture of it, with his
square jaw, his well-moulded head set
close to the shoulders on q sturdy
neck. his even teeth showing as his
lips parted in an unconscious smile.
Marta, Marital She isis so OK.
plosive," Mrs. Galland remarked apollo
getically to the colonel.
Il asked for her reasons. brought
1t on myself-and it ia not a bad com.
pliment," he replied. Indeed, he had
never received one SO thrilling.
His smile, smile well pleased with
itself, remained as Mrs. Galland began
to talk Of other things, and its linger
ing satisfaction disappeared only with
Marta's cry at sight of the speck In
the sky over the Brown range She
was out on the lawn before the others
had risen from their seats.
AN aeroplane! Hurry" she called
How fast the speck grew!
Naturally, the business of war
watching for every invention that
might serve its ends, was the first
patron Of flight. Captain Arthur Ian.
stron, pupil of a pioneer aviator, had
been warned by him and by the chief
OF staff Of the Browns, who was look.
Ing on, to keep in a circle close to the
ground But he was doing 30 we'll
that he thought he would try rising a
little higher. The submits of the range
shot under him, unfolding variegated
rug OF landscape. He dipped the planes
slightly, intending to follow the ranges
descent and again they answered to
his desire. The tower loomed before
him as suddenly as If 1t had been shot
up out Of the earth. He must turn,
and quickly, to avoid disaster; he must
turn, or he would be across the white
posts in the enemy's country.
"Oht" groaned Marta and Mrs. Gal.
land together.
In an agony Of suspense they saw
the fragile creation Of cloth and bam-
boo and metal, which had seemed as
secure as an albatross riding on 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 fight ceased. 1t was no longer
thing of winged life, defying the law
of gravity, but q thing dead. falling un-
der the burden of living weight
ETo be continued.1