The Odanah star. [volume] (Odanah, Ashland Co., Wis.) 1912-1916, 1915-03-26
CHAPTER XXI-Continued.

I'VE are going on, and my guns,
on to the best yet -on in the pursuit!
Nothing can stop us! We shall hit the
Grays so fast and hard that they can
never get their machine In order again.
God bless you! Everything that is fine
in me will always think finely of you!
You and Lanny-two fixed stars for
mel"
"Truly!" She was radiant. "Truly?"
she asked wistfully.
Eyes, yes-a yes as real as the
guns!"
'Then it helps Oh, how it helps!"'
she murmured almost inaudibly.
"Good-by! God bless you!" he cried
as he started to go, adding over his
shoulder merrily: "I'll send you pic
ture postcard from the Grays' capital
of my guns parked in the palace
square,"
She watched him leap the garden
wall as lightly as he had come and
gallop away, an impersonation of the
gay, adventurous spirit of war, count
ing death and wounds and hardship as
the delights of the gamble. Yes, he
would follow the Grays, throwing
shells in the irresponsible joy Of toss
ing confetti in carnival Pursuit!
Was Feller's the sentiment Of the
army? Were the Browns not to stop
at the frontier? Were they to change
their song to, Nov we have ours we
shall take some of theirs?" The
thought was fresh fuel to the live Goals
that still remained under the ashes.
A brigade commander and some of
his staff-officers near by formed a
group with faces intent around an op-
orator who was attaching his instru-
ment to field-wire that had just been
reeled over the hedge. Marta moved
toward them, but paused on hearing an
outburst of jubilant EXPLANATIONS:
"A hundred thousand prisoners"
"And five hundred guns!"
Were coming in on their frontier
all along the line!"
tits incrediblei" >n {'=E LIZ
"But the word is official--it's right"
From mouth to mouth-a hundred
thousand prisoners, five hundred guns
the news was passed in the garden.
Eyes dull with fatigue began flashing
as the soldiers broke into a cheer that
was not led, cheer unlike any Marta
had heard before. 1t had the high
notes of men who were weary, of a ter
rible exultation, of spirit stronger than
tired legs and as yet unsatisfed. Other
EXPLANATIONS from both officers and
men expressed hunger whetted by
the taste of one days victory.
well go on!"
We'll make peace in their capital!"
"And with an indemnity that will
xtagger the world!"
Nothing is impossible with Lam
stron. How he has worked it out
baited them to their own destruction"
"A frontier of our own choosing!"
con the next range. We will keep
all that stretch of plain there!"
and the river, tool"
"They shall pay-pay for attacking
us!"
Pay, pay for the drudgery, the sleep
Tess nights, the dead and the wounded
for our dead and wounded! No mat
ter about theirs! The officers were too
intent in their elation to observe
young woman. standing quite still, her
lips thin line and a deep blaze in
her eyes as she looked this way and
that at the field Of faces, seeking some
dissentient, some partisan of the right
She was seeing the truth now; the
cold truth, the old truth to which she
had been u~t-ue when she took Eel
ler's place. There could be no choice
of sides in war unless you believed in
war. One who fought for peace must
take up arms against all armies. Her
part as a spy appeared to her clad in
new kind of shame; the desertion Of
her principles.
Nor did the officers observe man of
thirty-five, wearing the cords of the
staff and generals stars, coming
around the corner of the house. Mar
ta's feverish, rowing glance had noted
him directly he was in sight. His face
seemed to be in keeping with the
other faces, in the ardor of, hunt un-
Finished hand in blouse pocket, his
bearing a little too easy to be conven-
tionally military-the same Lanny.
She was dimly conscious of surprise
not to find him changed, perhaps be-
cause he was unaccompanied by a re-
tinue or any other symbol of his power.
He might have been coming to cali on
a Sunday afternoon. In that first
glimpse 1t was difficult to think of
him as the commander of an army. But
that he was, she must not forget. She
was shaken and trembling; and a
mist rose before her, so that she did
not see him clearly when, with a ges-
ture Of relief, he saw her.
"Lanstron!" exclaimed an officer In
the first explosive breath of amaze
ment on recognizing him; then added:
His Excellenoy, the chief of staff"
But the one word, Lanstron, had
been enough to thrill all the officers
into silence and ramrod salutes. Marta