Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-10-30
THE LAST SHOT
By FREDERICK PALMER
wright. 1914, By Charles Scribner's Sons.

stroke OF whose pencil had made the
Galland house an inferno? Marta
wondered as Lanstron read his mes
sage-the message out of the real
heart of the man, throbbing with the
power of his great brain. His plan
was to hold the Grays to stalemate;
to force them to desist after they had
battered their battalions to pieces
against the Brown Notifications. His
dream was the thing that had hap
pened-that an opportunity would
come to pursue broken machine in
bold stroke of the offensive.
'T would want to be hero of our
people for only one aim, to be able
to stop our army at the frontier" he
had written. Then they might drive
me forth heaped with obloquy, IL they
chose. should like to see the Grays
demoralized, beaten, ready to sue for
peace, the better to prove my point
that we should ask only for what is
ours and that our strength was only
for the purpose of holding what is
ours. Then we should lay up no leg.
could never have cause to attack
again. Civilization would have ad-
vanced another step"
Lanstron continued to read to the
amazed staff, for Partow's message
had looked far into the future. Then
there was P. s., written after the
war had begun, on the evening of the
day that Marta had gone from tea on
the veranda with Westerllng to the
telephone, in the impulse of her new
purpose.
"I begin to believe in that dream"
he wrote. II begin to believe that the
chance for the offensive will come,
now that my colleague, Miss Galland,
in the name of peace has turned prac.
tical There is nothing like mixing
little practice in your dreams while
the world Is still we'll this side OF
Utopia, as the head on my old behe.
moth of body we'll knows. She had
the right idea with her school. The
oath so completely expressed my
ideas-the result of all my thinking
that / had a twinge of literary jeal.
ousy. My boy, IL you do reach the
frontier, in pursuit of a broken army,
and you do not keep faith with my
dream and with her ideals, then you
viii get lesson that will last you for
ever at the foot of the Gray range.
But l do not think so badly as that of
you or of my Judgment of men,"
"Lanny! Lanny!"
The dignity Of staff council could
not restrain Marta. Her emotion must
have action. She eprang to his side
and seized his hand, her exultation
mixed with penitence over the way
she had wronged him and Partow.
Their self-contained purpose had been
the same as hers and they had worked
with soldiers fortitude, while she
had worked with whims and impulses.
She bent over him with gratitude and
praise and a plea for forgiveness in
her eyes, submerging the thing which
he sought in them. He flushed boy
ishly In happy embarrassment, inca
pable Of words for an instant; and
silently the STAFF looked on.
And agree with Partow," Lanstron
went on, that we cannot take the
range. Tbs Grays still have numbers
equal to ours. 1t is they, now, who
will be singing God with us!' with
their backs against the wall. With
Partow's goes my own appeal to the
! army and the nation; and shall keep
faith with Partow, with Miss Galland.
and with my own ideas, IL the govern
ment orders the army to advance, by
resigning as chief of staff--my work
finished"
Westerling and his aide and valet,
inquiring their way as strangers, found
the new staff headquarters Of the
Grays established in an army building,
where Bouchard had been assigned to
trivial duties, back of the Gray range.
AS their former chief entered a room
! in the disorder of maps and packing
cases, the staff-off1cers rose from their
work to stand at salute like stone i'm
ages, in respect to a field-marshal's
rank. There was no word OF greeting
but telling silence before Turcas
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