fashion, but there was no salt or lard; the empty stomachs continued
to assert their claims.

"Come, now, corporal, you are a knowing old file," Chouteau tauntingly
continued, "what have you got for us? Oh, it's not for myself I care;
Loubet and I had a good breakfast; a lady gave it us. You were not at
distribution, then?"

Jean beheld a circle of expectant eyes bent on him; the squad had been
waiting for him with anxiety, Pache and Lapoulle in particular,
luckless dogs, who had found nothing they could appropriate; they all
relied on him, who, as they expressed it, could get bread out of a
stone. And the corporal's conscience smote him for having abandoned
his men; he took pity on them and divided among them half the bread
that he had in his sack.

"Name o' God! Name o' God!" grunted Lapoulle as he contentedly munched
the dry bread; it was all he could find to say; while Pache repeated a
_Pater_ and an _Ave_ under his breath to make sure that Heaven should
not forget to send him his breakfast in the morning.

Gaude, the bugler, with his darkly mysterious air, as of a man who has
had troubles of which he does not care to speak, sounded the call for
evening muster with a glorious fanfare; but there was no necessity for
sounding taps that night, the camp was immediately enveloped in
profound silence. And when he had verified the names and seen that
none of his half-section were missing, Sergeant Sapin, with his thin,
sickly face and his pinched nose, softly said:

"There will be one less to-morrow night."