The platoon filed along to the left upon the cross-road, marching as swiftly as their tired legs would permit. The stream of wounded had stopped. The field kitchens and supply wagons had turned off in the woods in rear. For miles sounded the baffled roar of firing artillery. Now and then a man fell out alongside the road, unable to march any longer, the cool green of the grass in the late afternoon offering a tantalizing bed. From behind them commenced a great clatter of caissons drawn jerkily along the shell-torn road by galloping, lathered horses. Artillerymen, one on the back of the leading horse, two on the caisson seat, urged the horses forward with picturesque curse words, only stopping long enough to shout at the platoon: “Better hurry up, you guys, or we’ll git to Germany before you will.” They rumbled away. In a twilight of mauve the platoon came to a halt on the crest of a broad hill. Silently they deployed, mud-caked ghosts, dragging wearily and uncertainly out in a long line that offered its front to the challenging boom of the enemy’s long-range guns. Water was found in a spring near by, and the men lay down in the shallow holes that they had dug, their blankets and ponchos thrown over them. A solitary sentry watched the stars, watched the red, the green, the blue-and-white signal lights flare for a moment along the line, then die away. * * * * * The gray spirit of dawn rose and hovered over the ground. In the faint light a unit of cavalry filed past. The riders, on delicate, supple mounts, carried long lances, with their points skyward. On their blue helmets bright, feathery plumes fell back gracefully. Their spotless uniforms, gray in the morning light, set off their youthful figures like those of pages attending a mediæval court. The horses, their fine legs delicately contoured, minced daintily down the hill and out of sight. Ahead, through a scattered line of trees, stretched a spacious prairie, covered thick with wheat,—a slightly rolling sea, majestically and omnipotently engulfing the universe. The platoon rose stiffly, bewildered, rubbing the stiffness from their faces. Over the calm of the air a danger was borne. Men smelled it in the acrid odor of powder which covered the grass. The trees, a thin line before them, swayed poignantly. Lorelei, singing seductively, sat in their branches. In attack formation the platoon moved toward the trees, to the front toward which they were moving. Beyond the trees a narrow path ran parallel. Reaching it, the platoon turned to the left, tramping heavily toward the main road from which they had come the night before.