connected with the lambing of his sheep, in the next break into
football talk, calling out signals and imploring his men to hold
them or to break through and get the ball. Once he broke into
curses, but his very oaths seemed to come from a clean heart and
missed the vulgarity they might have had. Again his talk rambled
inconsequently over his youth, and he would urge himself or
someone else of the same name to better life.

"Ned, Ned, remember your mother," he would beseech. "She asked me
to look after you. Don't go wrong." Or else it would be, "Don't
disgrace the general, Ned. You'll break his heart if you blacken
the old name." To this theme he recurred repeatedly, and she
noticed that when he imagined himself in the East his language
was correct and his intonation cultured, though still with a
suggestion of a Southern softness.

But when he spoke of her his speech lapsed into the familiar
drawl of Cattleland. "I ain't such a sweep as y'u think, girl.
Some day I'll sure tell y'u all about it, and how I have loved
y'u ever since y'u scooped me up in your car. You're the gamest
little lady! To see y'u come a-sailin' down after me, so steady
and businesslike, not turning a hair when the bullets hummed--I
sure do love y'u, Helen." And then he fell upon her first name
and called her by it a hundred times softly to himself.

This happened when she was alone with him, just before the doctor
came. She heard it with starry eyes and with a heart that flushed
for joy a warmer color into her cheeks. Brushing back the short
curls, she kissed his damp forehead. It was in the thick of the
battle, before he had weathered that point where the issues of