They're brought down from the trees like squirrels, to get a hot reception with bayoneted stock; they'll need no more doctors' care. We are not fighting loyal enemies, but treacherous brigands. [Note--It is scarcely necessary to point out that it is no more "treacherous," but quite as lawful, to fire from the branches of a tree as from a window, or from a trench, and that, on the contrary, it is rather more venturesome and more courageous, as the sequel of this story will show.] We crossed the clearing at a bound. The foe is hidden here and there among the bushes, and now we are upon them. No quarter will be given. We fire standing, at will; very few fire kneeling; nobody dreams of shelter. We finally reach a slight depression in the ground, and there the red trousers are lying in masses, here and there--dead or wounded. We club or stab the wounded, for we know that these rascals, as soon as we are gone by, will fire from behind. We find one Frenchman lying at full length upon his face, but he is counterfeiting death. A kick from a robust fusilier gives him notice that we are there. Turning over he asks for quarter, but he gets the reply--"Oh! is that the way, blackguard, that your tools work?" and he is pinned to the ground. On one side of me I hear curious cracklings. They're the blows which a soldier of the 154th is vigorously showering upon the bald pate of a Frenchman with the stock of his gun; he very wisely chose for this work a French gun, for fear of breaking his own. Some men of particularly sensitive soul grant the French wounded the grace to finish them with a bullet, but others scatter here and there, wherever they can, their clubbings and stabbings. Our adversaries have fought bravely. They were élite troops that we had before us. They had allowed us to come within thirty, and even within ten, meters--too close. Their arms and knapsacks thrown down in heaps showed that they wanted to fly, but upon the appearance of our "gray phantoms" terror paralyzed them, and, on the narrow path in which they crowded, the German bullets brought them the order to halt! There they are at the very entrance of their leafy hiding places, lying down moaning and asking for quarter, but whether their wounds are light or grievous, the brave fusiliers saved their country the expensive care which would have to be given to such a number of enemies.