its weary burden, but when he saw two others relieve themselves as the
first had done he could stand it no longer. "Ah! _zut_!" he exclaimed,
and with a quick upward jerk of the shoulder sent his kit rolling down
an embankment. Fifty pounds at the end of his backbone, he had had
enough of it, thank you! He was no beast of burden to lug that load
about.

Almost at the same moment Loubet followed his lead and incited
Lapoulle to do the same. Pache, who had made the sign of the cross at
every stone crucifix they came to, unbuckled the straps and carefully
deposited his load at the foot of a low wall, as if fully intending to
come back for it at some future time. And when Jean turned his head
for a look at his men he saw that every one of them had dropped his
burden except Maurice.

"Take up your knapsacks unless you want to have me put under arrest!"

But the men, although they did not mutiny as yet, were silent and
looked ugly; they kept advancing along the narrow road, pushing the
corporal before them.

"Will you take up your knapsacks! if you don't I will report you."

It was as if Maurice had been lashed with a whip across the face.
Report them! that brute of a peasant would report those poor devils
for easing their aching shoulders! And looking Jean defiantly in the
face, he, too, in an impulse of blind rage, slipped the buckles and
let his knapsack fall to the road.

"Very well," said the other in his quiet way, knowing that resistance