with gasps between. "To be cast out as an old horse--at the moment of
glory! I had dreamed all my life--of fighting. And I had it--oh, my
colonel--I had it! The glory came when I was old and knew how to be
happy in it. Not as a boy who laughs and takes all as his right. I was
old, yes, but I was good to kill the vermin. I avenged the children and
the women whom those savages--My people, the savages of the wood, knew
no better, yet they have not done things as bad as these vile ones who
were educated, who knew. Therefore I killed them. I was old, but I was
strong, my colonel knows. Not for nothing have I lived a hard life. _On
a vu de la misère_. I have hunted moose and bear and kept my muscles of
steel and my eyes of a hawk. It is in my blood to be a fighting man. I
fought with pleasure, and I was troubled with no fear. I was old, but I
could have killed many devils more. And so I was shot down by my own
friend after seven days of hard life. And the young soldier doctor
discharged me as unfit to fight. And so I am come home very fast to hide
myself, for I am ashamed. I am finished. The fighting and the glory are
for me no more."

The colonel stepped back a bit and his face flamed. "Glory!" he
whispered. "Glory no more for the Hirondelle? What of the Croix de
Guerre?"

Rafael shook his head. "I haf heard my colonel who said they would have
given me--me, the Hirondelle--the war cross. That now is lost too."

"Lost!" The colonel's deep tone was full of the vibration which only a
French voice carries. With a quick movement he unfastened the catch that
held the green ribbon, red-striped, of his own cross of war. He turned
and pinned the thing which men die for on the shabby coat of the guide.
Then he kissed him on either cheek. "My comrade," he said, "your glory