Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-10-11

All lrlhg except occasional scattered shols had now ceased ill the immedi- ate vicinity though in the distance could be heard the snarl of the lirlner resistance that the Grays were mak- ing at some other point. The Galland house, for the time being, was isolated in possession Gf neither side.
 Isn't there something else l can do to help with the wounded?' Marta asked. She longed for action in order to escape her thoughts.
 You've had q terrible shock-When you are stronger" said the doctor.
 When you have had something to eat and drink" observed the practical Minna authoritatively.
 Marta would not have the food brought to her. She insisted that she was strong enough to accompany Mnna to the tower. While Mnna urged mouthfuls down Marta's dry throat as she sat outside the door of the sittingroom with her mother a number of weary duststreaked faces, with feverish energy in their eyes, peered over the hedge that bounded the garden on the side toward the pass. These scout shirmishers of Stransky S men of the 53d Regiment of the Browns made beckoning gestures as fo a crowd, before they Sprang over the hedge and ran swiftly, Watchfully, toward the linden stumps, closely fol- lowed by their comrades. Soon the whole garden was overrun by the lean, businesslike fellows, their glances all ferret-like to the front.
 Look, Minna!" exclaimed Marta. "The giant who carried the old man in pickaback the first night of the war."
 Minna was flushing, but the flush dissipated and she drew up her chin when Stransky, looking around, reeog- nized her with a merry, confident wave of his hand.
 See, he's a captain and he wears an iron cross!" said Marta as Stransky hastened toward them.
 grudgingly.
 Eager, leviathan, his cap doffed with q sweeping gesture as he made a low bow, Stransky was the very spirit of retributive victory returning to claim the ground that he had lost
 "Well, this is like getting home again." he cried.
 50 I see." said Minna equivocally.
 ,cly h sighting them on the bridge of his nose thoughtfully at this dubious reception.
 T came back for the chance to kiss a good woman's hand" he observed with profound awkwardness and looking at Minnas hand. Your hand!" he added, the cast in his eyes strengthening as he looked directly at her appealingly.
 She extended her finger-tips and he pressed his lips to them.
 q kept seeing the way you looked when you belted me one in the facs," he went on, '-und knocked any an archism out of me that was left after the shell burst. I kept seeing your face in my last glimpse when the Grays made me run for it from your for the oration crying for voice. You were in my dreams! You were in bat tie with mel"
 "This sounds like disordered mind," observed Minna. i've heard men talk that way before"
 "Oh, 1 have talked that way to other women myself" said Stransky.
 "Yes," said Minna bitterly. His can dor was rather unexpected.
 "I have talked to others in passing on the high road" he continued. But never after a woman had struck me in the face. That blow sank deep-deep deep as what Lanstron said when l revolted on the march. I say it to you with this"-he touched the cross-"on my breast. And I'm not going to give you up. It's big world. There's room in it for place for you after the war is over and I'm going to make the place. Good-by till I'm back-back to stay! Good-by, little daughter!" he added with wave of his hand to Clar- issa as he turned to go. Maybe we shall have our own automobile some day. It's no stranger than what's been happening to me since the war began"
 "If you don't marry him, Minna, I'll -I'll-" Mrs. Galland could not find words for the fearful thing that she would do.
 Marry him! I have only met him three times for about three minutes each time!" protested Minna. She was as rosy as girl and in her confu- sion she busted herself relying the rib bon on Clarissa Eileen's hair. "He called you little daughter!" she said softly to the child as she withdrew into the tower.
 Marta remained in the chair by the doorway of the tower, weak and list less. Now her lashes were. closed; again they opened slightly as her gaze roved the semicircle of the horizon. A mounted officer and his orderly gallop- ing across the fields to the pass road caught her desultory attention and held it, for they formed the most i'm petuous object on the landscape. When the officer aIiphted at the foot of the