The corporal’s eye, roaming about the circle, fell upon the figure of a man who had just approached the fire and stood in the full glare of the red light, thrusting one foot close to the blaze, while he balanced himself on the other. His ragged hair and unkempt beard were of the color of the miry clay at his feet. His shoulders, rounded at best, were unnaturally drawn forward by the exertion of keeping his hands in his pockets, the while he maintained his balance. His face, of which snub nose and grey eyes alone were visible in the frame of straggling hair and under the shadow of the battered foragecap visor, wore a pleased, almost merry, look in the flickering, ruddy light. He was humming a droning sort of tune to himself as he watched the steam rise from the wet leather. “Zeke’s happy to-night; that means fight tomorrow, sure as God made little fishes,” said the corporal to nobody in particular. Then he lifted his voice: “Have you got a place in your diggin’s for a recruit, Zeke--say just for to-night?” he asked. Zeke looked up, and sauntered forward to where they stood, hands still in pockets. “Well--I don’t know,” he drawled. “Guess so--if he don’t snore too bad.” He glanced Linsky over with indolent gravity. It was plain that he didn’t think much of him. “Got a blanket?” he asked, abruptly. “I have that,” the Irishman replied. “Anything to drink?” Linsky produced from his jacket pocket a flat, brown bottle, twin brother to that which had been passed about the camp-fire circle earlier in the evening, and held it up to the light. “They called it whiskey,” he said, in apology; “an’ be the price I paid fur it, it moight a’ been doimonds dissolved in angel’s tears; but the furst sup I tuk of it, faith, I thought it ’ud tear th’ t’roat from me!” Zeke had already linked Linsky’s arm within his own, and he reached forth now and took the bottle. “It’s p’zen to a man that ain’t used to it,” he said, with a grave wink to the corporal. “Come along with me, Irish; mebbe if you watch me close you can pick up points about gittin’ the stuff down without injurin’ your throat.” And, with another wink, Zeke led his new-found friend away from the fire, picking his steps through the soft mud, past dozens of little tents propped up with rails and boughs, walking unconsciously toward a strange, new, dazzling future. CHAPTER II--THE VIDETTE POST.