It was high noon above the Orient, where the Peiho flows beside the populous town of Yang-Tsun. The Boxer army routed by the battle of Peit-Tsang had massed its front before the town, a formidable array in numbers, equipment, and frenzied eagerness to halt here and forever the poor little line of foreign soldiers creeping in upon it from the sea. The Boxers knew that they could match the fighting strength of this line with quadruple force. The troops coming toward them had marched twelve miles under the August heat of a hundred degrees, through sand and alkali dust, in the heavy humid air saturated with evil odors. They had had no food since the night before, nor a drink of water since daydawn. Joyful would it be to slaughter here the entire band and then rush back to the hoary old City of Peking with the triumphant message that the Allied Armies of the World had fallen before China. Then the death of every foreigner in the Empire would be certain. At noon the battle lines were formed. In the swinging into place as Thaine Aydelot stood beside Tasker, surrounded by his comrades, Little Kemper dashed by him. "Here's where the corn-fed Kansans do their work," he said gaily to the Kansas men. "With a few bean-eaters from Boston to help," Goodrich responded. "And a Hoosier to give them culture," Binford added. "Yes, yes, with the William Penn Quakers and the Pennsylvania Dutch," Schwoebel roared, striking McLearn on the shoulder. Men think of many things as the battle breaks, but never do they fight less bravely because they have laughed the moment before. Thaine was in the very front of the battle lines. In the pause before the first onslaught he thought of many things confusedly and a few most vividly. He thought of Leigh Shirley and her childish dream of Prince Quippi in China--the China just beyond the purple notches. He thought of his mother as she had looked that spring morning when he talked of enlisting for the Spanish War. He thought of his father, who had never known fear in his life. Of his last words: "As thy days so shall thy strength be." And keenly he remembered Dr. Carey, somewhere among the troops behind him. The fine head crowned with white hair, caressed by the moonbeams, as he had seen it in the Manila garden, and his earnest words: "You must learn to be a Christian. You must know what service for humanity means. You need not hunt for the opportunity to prove this. The opportunity is hurrying toward you now out of the Unknown." "It is here, the opportunity," he murmured. "Oh, God, make me a fit soldier for Thy service." He did not pray for safety from danger and death; he asked for fitness to serve and in that moment his great lesson was learned. There came an instant's longing for Dr. Carey; then the battle storm burst and he did not think any more, he fought. It were useless to picture that struggle.