he tried to wheel around--his face amazed and wondering. Then he
dropped. He wondered, too, why he couldn't get around, and then he
wondered how it was that he happened to be falling to the earth.
Darkness came then, and through it ran one bitter thought--he had been
shot in the back. He did think of his mother and of Judith--but it was a
fleeting vision of both, and his main thought was a dull wonder whether
there would be anybody to explain how it was that his wound was not in
front. And then, as he felt himself lifted, it flashed that he would at
least be found on top of the hill, and beyond the Spaniard's trench, and
he saw Blackford's face above him. Then he was dropped heavily to the
ground again and Blackford pitched across his body. There was one
glimpse of Abe Long's anxious face above him, another vision of Judith,
and then quiet, painless darkness.

* * * * *

It was fiercer firing now than ever. The Spaniards were in the second
line of trenches and were making a sortie. Under the hill sat Grafton
and another correspondent while the storm of bullets swept over them.
Grafton was without glasses--a Mauser had furrowed the skin on the
bridge of his nose, breaking his spectacle-frame so that one glass
dropped on one side of his nose and the other on the other. The other
man had several narrow squeaks, as he called them, and, even as they
sat, a bullet cut a leaf over his head and it dropped between the pages
of his note-book. He closed the book and looked up.

"Thanks," he said. "That's just what I want--I'll keep that."

"I observe," said Grafton, "that the way one of these infernal bullets
sounds depends entirely on where you happen to be when you hear it. When