"Put me down! I ain't going to depend on any traitor that insulted the flag!" protested grandfather.
"That's the way! Call out to me now and then so I'll know you're there," said Stransky. "You're so light I mightn't know it if you fell off."
Dellarme did not think it right to expose the last section by asking it to delay. Shepherd of his flock and miser of his pieces of gold, now that their work was done the one thing he wanted in the world was that they should escape without further punishment. Already the van of the first section was disappearing into the cut in safety. But the fourth section, which had held to the last, had yet a thousand yards to go over a path bare of cover except a single small bush. At any moment he expected to hear a cheer from the knoll, and what would follow the cheer he knew only too well. Yet he tarried with Stransky out of one man's impulse not to desert another in danger. At the same time he was wroth with the old man for having made such a nuisance of himself.
"What are you waiting for?" Stransky demanded of Dellarme.
"I like good company," answered Dellarme cheerfully.
"Compliment for you, grandfather!" said Stransky.
"Still there, eh? Thanks, grandpop!" said Stransky, turning on Dellarme. "Can't you run any faster than that, captain? Your place is with your men, sir. If you got wounded I'd have to carry you, too. Your company's gaining on you every minute. Hurry up!"
From the peremptory way that he spoke, Dellarme might have been the private and Stransky the officer.
"Right!" said Dellarme in face of such unanswerable military logic, and broke into a run.
Stransky adapted himself to a pace which he thought he could maintain, and plodded on, eyes on the bush as a half-way point. After a while he heard a mighty hurrah, which was cut short abruptly; then spits of dust about their feet hastened the steps of the last section, which was near the cut. He saw men drop out of line to make a cradle of their arms for comrades who had been hit; and these finally passed out of danger with their burdens.
"No flock in sight! It's the turn of the individual birds!" thought Stransky, and heard a familiar sound about his ears.
"Bullets!" exclaimed grandfather. "Don't whistle like they used to. They kind of crack and sizzle now. Maybe if they hit me I'll stop 'em, and that'll save you."