Then the men of each nationality went out to bury their dead. Swiftly the little brown Japanese digged and filled up the graves into which their comrades were deftly heaped. The Russian and Siberian Cossack lunged their fallen ones in heavily and unfeelingly. The Bengalese and Sikhs thrust their own out of sight as they were planting for an uncertain harvest. Each soldier from France who lost his life on that battlefield fell on his own grave and there his countrymen covered him over, an unmarked spot in a foreign land. Thaine straightened a minute above his spade. The cool breezes were grateful to his heated brow. The after-sunset glow seemed like the benediction of the Infinite on the closing act of the day. He saw the hurried and unfeeling dumping of bodies into the holes awaiting them. Then his heart grew big with something unspeakable as he noted how in all that irreverent and unsympathetic action the American and English soldiery alone were serving as brother for brother. In the long trenches prepared for them their dead were laid with reverent dignity and gentleness. Each one's place was carefully marked with a numbered slab that in a future day the sacred dust might be carried back to the soil of the homeland. As the sunset deepened to richer coloring and the battlefield grew still and still, far along the lines the bands of the English Royal Artillery and the Welsh Fusiliers, with the bagpipes of the Scottish Highlanders, mingled their music with the music of the splendid band of the Fourteenth American Infantry in the sweet and sacred strains of the beloved old hymn: Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee. E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me. Still all my song shall be Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee. And Thaine Aydelot knew that his last and biggest lesson was learned. CHAPTER XXIII THE END OF THE WILDERNESS Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre? Have I kept one single nugget (barring samples)? No, not I. Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker. But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy. --The Explorer. The victory at Yang-Tsun had come with a tremendous loss of life. To go on now promised the cutting to pieces of the entire army. To stay here and await reinforcements would mean the slaughter of all the foreigners in Peking. In a council of war the next day English and Indian, Russian, German, Japanese, Italian, and French, general after general declared for the wisdom of waiting at Yang-Tsun for reinforcements. Up spoke then General Chaffee of the American command: