that was gnawing at their stomach, the shoes that galled their feet,
their weary march, the unexpected defeat that had brought the enemy
galloping at their heels. There was nothing more to be accomplished;
their leaders were looking out for themselves, the commissariat did
not even feed them; nothing but weariness and worriment; better to
leave the whole business at once, before it was begun. And what then?
why, the musket might go and keep the knapsack company; in view of the
work that was before them they might at least as well keep their arms
free. And all down the long line of stragglers that stretched almost
far as the eye could reach in the smooth and fertile country the
muskets flew through the air to the accompaniment of jeers and
laughter such as would have befitted the inmates of a lunatic asylum
out for a holiday.

Loubet, before parting with his, gave it a twirl as a drum-major does
his cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, must
have supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in the
manual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of duty
that he owed to his religious education, refused to do as the rest
were doing and was loaded with obloquy by Chouteau, who called him a
priest's whelp.

"Look at the sniveling papist! And all because his old peasant of a
mother used to make him swallow the holy wafer every Sunday in the
village church down there! Be off with you and go serve mass; a
man who won't stick with his comrades when they are right is a
poor-spirited cur."

Maurice toiled along dejectedly in silence, bowing his head beneath
the blazing sun. At every step he took he seemed to be advancing