the ranks. Summoning his courage he crossed the threshold and stepped
into the vacant emptiness of the house. Everything was gone but the four
stone walls. There were unrecognizable heaps of ashes here and there. He
bent over them fearfully in the twilight wondering whether the
shapeless, formless masses were--

Something caught his eye. The one thing intact apparently. He stooped
over it. It was the baby's shoe--white, it had been originally. He
remembered it. Now it was stained with blood. That was all that was
left--a little baby's shoe, blood spotted. He pressed it to his heart
and groaned aloud. A spasm of mortal anguish shook his frame. He lifted
his clenched hand toward the sky overshadowing the roofless walls.

Now he suddenly became aware that he was not alone. There was someone
else in the room. He saw vaguely, indistinctly, a figure strangely clad,
staggering on with bended back as if under some crushing load. He stared
in the twilight striving to concentrate his faculties. The figure passed
by. On its back was a shadowy something--beams of wood roughly crossed,
he decided. It raised its head and looked at him. The face was somehow
lighter than the rest.

The man's arm fell. The room was empty after all. He stared at the
little shoe. Was it somewhere well with the child, with its mother?
Unbuttoning his tunic he thrust the little shoe within, over his heart.
He straightened up. Away off on the road a bugle call rang out above the
tumult. He turned away, seized his rifle, shouldered it, stepped rapidly
toward his regiment and his duty.