"Yes, it's there!" he whispered when he returned. "On the crest of the knoll a cord is stretched from stake to stake," he said, explaining the reason for what was to be done, as was his custom. "The engineers placed it there after dusk and the frontier was closed, so that you would know just where to use your spades in the dark. Quietly as possible! No talking!" he kept cautioning as the men turned the soft earth, "and not higher than the cord, and lay the stubble side of the sods on the reverse so as to cover the fresh earth on the sky-line."
When the work was done all returned behind the knoll except the sentries posted at intervals on the crest to watch. With the aid of a small electric flash, screened by his hands, Dellarme again examined a section of the staff map that outlined the contour of the knoll in relation to the other positions. After this he wrote in his diary the simple facts of the day's events, concluding with a sentiment of gratitude for the honor shown to his company and a prayer that he might keep a clear head and do his duty if war came on the morrow.
"Now, every one get all the sleep he can!" he advised the men.
Stransky slept, with his head on his arm, as soundly as Eugene Aronson, his antithesis in character; the others slept no better than the men of the 128th. The night passed without any alarm except that of their own thoughts, and they welcomed dawn as a relief from suspense. There was no hot coffee this morning, and they washed down their rations with water from their canteens. The old sergeant was lying beside Captain Dellarme on the crest, the sunrise in their faces. As the mist cleared from the plain it revealed the white dots of the frontier posts in the meadow and behind them many gray figures in skirmish order, scarcely visible except through the glasses.
"It looks like business!" declared the old sergeant.
"Yes, it begins the minute they cross the line!" said Dellarme.
His glance sweeping to the rear to scan the landscape under the light of day, he recognized, with a sense of pride and awe, the tactical importance of his company's position in relation to that of the other companies. Easily he made out the regimental line by streaks of concealed trenches and groups of brown uniforms; and here and there were the oblong, cloth stretches of waiting hospital litters. On the reverse slope of another knoll was the farmhouse, marked X on his map as the regimental headquarters, where he was to watch for the signal to fall back from his first stand in delaying the enemy's advance. Directly to the rear was the cut through which the company had come from the main pass road, and beyond that the Galland house, which was to be the second stand.
"Can you see them from up here?" chirped a voice in a jubilant, cackling laugh that drew Dellarme's attention to his immediate surroundings, and he saw Grandfather Fragini coming up to join him on the crest. He slid back on his stomach below the sky-line and held up an arresting hand.
"Kept along after you," piped the old man; "and it's just as I thought—the glummest lot of funeral faces I ever seen!"
"You must not remain! Follow that cut there and it will take you out to the road!" Dellarme told grandfather sharply.