“What are you waiting for?” Stransky demanded of Dellarme.

“I like good company,” answered Dellarme cheerfully.

“Compliment for you, grandfather!” said Stransky.

“Put me down!” screamed grandfather.

“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.”

“That’s so,” replied Stransky glumly, realizing that he was running with a human shield on his back.  “But they’ll go right through him he’s so thin,” he thought in relief.  The worst of it was that he had to receive without sending, which made him boil with rage.  He wished that the bush had legs so it could run toward him; he half believed that it had and was retreating.  “They’re shooting right at us, and that’s in our favor.  It’s hard to get the bull’s-eye at that range,” he assured grandfather.

Whish-whish-whish!  Enough pellets were singing by to have torn away the rim of the target, yet none got the centre before Stransky dropped behind the bush.  Blessed bush!  Back of it was a bowlder.  Thrice-blessed bowlder!  It protected grandfather as securely as the armor of a battleship.

“We are having a noisy time,” remarked Stransky as two or three of the leaves fell.  “Intelligent thieves!  How did you guess we were here?” and he put his big thumb to his big nose.

“But they didn’t know about the bowlder!” said the old man with a senile giggle.  “Say, I didn’t mean it when I called you a traitor—­not after the fight!  I just said that to make you mad so you’d put me down and we shouldn’t lose a good fighting man trying to save an old bag of bones like me.  You ain’t no traitor!  You’re a patriot!”

“More politics, when I’m simply full of cussedness!” grumbled Stransky.  “Not having any home, I’m fighting to save the other fellows’ homes, principally because I was married this morning by a shrapnel-shell to a lady that understands me perfectly.  Say, shall we give them a few?” he asked with a squint down the bridge of his nose as he took up his rifle.