Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1920-07-22

corps to throw his men ashore here"
EFF the wind were not from the
east" said I.
"Ah, quite so, IL the wind were not
from the east. Have you taken sound
ings herey
mo"
"Your line-of-battleships would have
to lie outside, but there is water
enough for q forty-gun frigate right up
within musket range. Cram your
boats with tirailleurs, deploy them be-
hind these sand-hills, then back with
the launches for more, and a stream Of
grape over their heads from the frig-
ate. 1t could be done! 1t could
be done" His mustaches bristled out
could see by the flash of his eyes that
he was carried away by his dream.
"You forget that our soldiers would
be upon the beach," said I Indignantly
STA, ia, ia ]" he cried. "Of course,
it takes two sides to make a battle.
Let us see now! Let us work it outl
What could you get together? Shall
we say ~twenty-thirty thousand? A
few regiments of good troops. The
rest. pouf !-conscripts, bourgeois with
arms, how do you call them-volun-
teers."
Brave men !" I shouted.
"Oh yes, very brave men, but i'm
beetle; ah, mon Dieu, it is Incredible
how imbecile they would be. Not
they alone, I mean, but all young
troops. War must be learned, my
young friend, just the same as the
farming Of sheep"
"Pooh!" said I, not to be outcrowed
by a foreigner. eff we had thirty
thousand men on the line of the hill
yonder you would come to be very glad
that you had your boats behind you"
Sometimes, when he talked, 7
thought he vas joking, and at other
times 1t was not quite SO easy to say.
I well remember one evening that
summer when he was sitting in the
kitchen with my father, Jim, and me,
after the women had gone to bed, he
began about Scotland and it's relation
to England.
you used to have your own king,
n your W laws made at Edin-
burgh," said he; "does it not fill you
with rage and despair when you think
that it all comes to you from London
now?"
Jim took his pipe out Of his mouth.
1T was we who put our king over
the English, so if there's any rage,
/ it should have been over yonder."
said he.
This was clearly y news to the
stranger, and it silenced him for the
moment.
well, but your laws are made
down there, and surely that is not
good" he said at last.
mo; it would be we'll to have q
parliament back in Edinburgh" said
my father; "but I am kept so busy
with the sheep that I have little
enough time to think Of such things.'
1T is for fine young men like you
two to think of it, said De Lapp.
When a country is injured it is to it's
young men that it looks to avenge it"
aye, the English take too much
upon themselves sometimes" said Jim.
We'll, if there are many Of that
way of thinking about, why should
we not form them into battalions and
march them upon London?" cried De
Lapp.
"That would be a rare little picnic"
said L, laughing; land who would
lead us?'
He jumped up, bowling with his
hand on his heart in his queer fashion.
IF you would allow me to have the
honor" he cried and then, seeing that
we were all laughing, he began to
laugh also, but 1 am sure that there
was really ne thought of a joke in his
mind.
| could lever make out what his age
could be, nor could Jim Horscroft
either. Sometimes we. thought that
he was an oldish man. that looked
young, and at others that he was q
youngish man who looked old. Onthe
whole, we thought that he might be
about forty or forty-fve, though it.
was hard to see how he could have
| sCSh So liuSll VI L LII lllc llLlC. ouI
one day we got talking Of ages, and
then he surprised US.
l had been saying that I was just
twenty, and Jim said that. he was
twentySseven.
"Then l am the most old Of the
three" said De Lapp.
We laughed at this, for by u
reckoning he might almost have been
our father.
"But not by SO much" said he, arch
ing his brows. II was nine-and-twen-
ty in December"
And it was this even more than his
talk which made us understand what
an extraordinary life it must have
been that he had led. He saw our as
t%onishment, and laughed at it.
IT have lived. / have lived" he
cried. II have spent my days and my
nights. I led a company in a battle
where five nations were engaged when
/ was but fourteen. I made a king
4 furp nala ar tha words r uhicpnrod IN