The Tempering Part 25

"I see no reason why you shouldn't make that race, but you'll be a fitter servant of your people for knowing a bit more of the world. As to the money, I've arranged that--though you'll have to live frugally.

There will be to your credit, in bank, enough to keep you for a year or two--and if I shouldn't get back--Colonel Wallifarro has my will. I want you to live at my house when you're in the mountains--and look after things--my small personal effects."

But for that plan of financing his future, Boone had a stout refusal, until the soldier stopped in the road and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I have never had a son," he said simply. "I have always wanted one.

Will you refuse me?"

It was a very painful day for both of them, but when at last Boone stood under the railroad shed and saw the man who was his idol wave his hat from the rear platform, he waved his own in return, and smiled the twisted smile of stiff lips.

On the ninth of February, as the boy glanced at the morning paper before he started for his first cla.s.s, he saw headlines that brought a creep to his scalp, and the hand that held the paper trembled.

Admiral Togo's fleet was steaming, with decks cleared for action, off Port Arthur--already a j.a.panese torpedo-boat flotilla had attacked and battered the Russian cruisers that crouched like grim watchdogs at the harbour's entrance--already the gray sea-monsters flying the sun-flag had ripped out their cannonading challenge to the guns of the coast batteries!

There had yet been no declaration of war--and the world, which had wearied of the old story of unsuccessful treaty negotiations, rubbed astonished eyes to learn that overnight a volcano of war had burst into eruption--that lava-spilling for which the Empire of Nippon had been building for a silent but determined decade.

Boone was late for his cla.s.ses that day--and so distrait and inattentive that his instructors thought he must be ill. To himself he was saying, with that ardour that martial tidings bring to young pulses, "Why couldn't he have taken me along with him?"

CHAPTER XXI

For Boone the approaching summer was no longer a period of zestful antic.i.p.ation. During that whole term he had looked eagerly ahead to those coming months back in the hills, when with the guidance of his wise friend he should plunge into the wholesome excitement of canva.s.sing his district.

Now McCalloway was gone. And just before commencement a letter from Anne brought news that made his heart sink.

"Father is going home to England for the summer," she said, "and that means that I won't get to the hills. I'm heartbroken over it, and it isn't just that 'I always miss the hills,'

either. I do miss them. Every dogwood that I see blooming alone in somebody's front yard, every violet in the gra.s.s, makes me homesick for the places where beauty isn't only sampled but runs riot--but there's a more personal note than that."

"You must climb old Slag-face for me, Boone, and write me all about it. If a single tree has blown down, don't fail to tell me, dear."

There was also another thing which would cloud his return to Marlin County. He could, in decency, no longer defer a painful confession to Happy. So far, chance had fended it off, but now she was back from the settlement school for good, and he was through college. In justice to her further silence could not be maintained.

Then May brought the Battle of the Yalu.

First there were only meagre newspaper reports--all that Boone saw before commencement--and later when the filtration of time brought the fuller discussions in the magazines, and the world had discovered General Kuroki, he was in the hills where magazines rarely came.

Upon the wall of General Prince's law office hung a map of the Manchurian terrain, and each day that devotee of military affairs took it down, and, with black ink and red ink, marked and remarked its surface.

On one occasion, when Colonel Wallifarro found him so employed, the two leaned over, with their heads close, in study of the situation.

"This Kuroki seems to be a man of mystery, General," began Wallifarro.

"And it has set me to speculating. The correspondents hint that he's not a native j.a.panese. They tell us that he towers in physical as well as mental stature above his colleagues."

"I can guess your thought, Tom," smiled General Prince. "And the same idea occurred to me. You are thinking of the two j.a.panese agents who came to the hills--and of McCalloway's sudden departure on a secret journey. But it's only a romantic a.s.sumption. I followed the Chinese-j.a.panese War with a close fidelity of detail--and Kuroki, though less conspicuous than nowadays, was even then prominent."

Tom Wallifarro bit the end from a cigar and lighted it.

"It is none the less to be a.s.sumed that McCalloway is over there," he observed. "Emperors don't send personal messengers half way round the world to call unimportant men to the colours."

"My own guess is this, Tom," admitted the cavalryman. "McCalloway is on Kuroki's staff. Presumably he learned all he knew under Dinwiddie--and this campaign shows the earmarks of a similar scheme of generalship.

Kuropatkin sought to delay the issue of combat, until over the restricted artery of the Siberian Railway he could augment his numbers and a.s.sume the offensive with a superior force."

"And at the Yalu, Kuroki struck and forced the fight."

"Precisely. He had three divisions lying about Wiju. It was necessary to cross the Yalu under the guns of Makau, and there we see the first manifestation of such an audacious stroke as Dinwiddie himself might have attempted."

Prince was pacing the floor now, talking rapidly, as he had done that night when, with McCalloway, he discussed Dinwiddie, his military idol.

"Kuroki--I say Kuroki, whether he was the actual impulse or the figurehead using the genius of a subordinate--threw the Twelfth Division forward a day in advance of his full force. The feint of a mock attack was aimed at Antung--and the enemy rose to the bait. One week in advance the command was given that at daybreak on the first of May the attack should develop. At many points, shifting currents had altered the channel and wiped out former possible fords. Pontoons and bridges had to be built on the spot--anchors even must be forged from sc.r.a.p-iron--yet at the precise moment designated in the orders, the Mikado's forces struck their blow. But wait just a moment, Tom."

General Prince opened a drawer and took out a magazine.

"Let me read you what one correspondent writes: 'At ten-thirty on the morning of April thirtieth, the duel of the opposing heights began, with roaring skies and smoking hills. The slopes north of Chinlien-Cheng were generously timbered that morning. Night found them shrapnel-torn and naked of verdure.

"'To visualize the field, one must picture a tawny river, island-dotted and sweeping through a broken country which lifts gradually to the Manchurian ridges. Behind Tiger Hill and Conical Hill, quiet and chill in the morning mists, lay the Czar's Third Army.

"'Then were the judgments loosened.' The attack is on now, and the thin brown lines are moving forward--slowly at first, as they approach the shallows of the river beyond the bridges and the islands. Those wreaths of smoke are Za.s.solich's welcome--from studiously emplaced pieces raking the challengers--but the challengers are closing their gaps and gaining momentum--carrying their wounded with them, as they wade forward. There are those, of course, whom it is impossible to a.s.sist--those who stumble in the shallow water to be snuffed out, candle-fashion.'"

The General paused to readjust his gla.s.ses, and Colonel Wallifarro mused with eyes fixed on the violet spirals of smoke twisting up from his cigar end. "Our friend would seem to be playing a man's game, after his long hermitage."

Prince took up the magazine again.

"'The farther sh.o.r.e is reached under a withering fire. Annihilation threatens the yellow men--they waver--then comes the order to charge.

For an instant the brown lines shiver and hang hesitant under the sting of the death-hail--but after that moment they leap forward and sweep upward. Their momentum gathers to an irresistible onrush, and under it the defence breaks down. The noises that have raved from earth to heaven, from horizon to horizon, are dropping from crescendo to diminuendo. The field pieces of the Czar are being choked into the m.u.f.fled growl of despair. Doggedly the Russian is giving back.'"

"Do you suppose, General," inquired Colonel Wallifarro suddenly, "that McCalloway confided the purpose of his journey to the boy?"

Prince shook his head positively. "I am quite sure that he has confided it to no one--but I am equally sure that Boone has guessed it by now."

"In that event I think it would tremendously interest him to read that article."

In the log house, where he had now no companionship, Boone received the narrative.

The place was very empty. Twilight had come on with its dispiriting shadows, and Boone lighted a lamp, and since the night was cool he had also kindled a few logs on the hearth.

For a long while he sat there after reading and rereading the description of the fight along the Manchurian River. His hands rested on his knees, and his fingers held the clipping.

On the table a forgotten law book lay open at a chapter on torts, but the young man's eyes were fixed on the blaze, in whose fitful leapings he was picturing, "the thunders through the foothills; tufts of fleecy shrapnel spread along the empty plain"--and in the picture he always saw one face, dominated by a pair of eyes that could be granite-stern or soft as mossy waters.

Finally he rose and unlocked a closet from which he reverently took out a scabbarded sword. Dinwiddie had entrusted that blade to McCalloway, and McCalloway had in turn entrusted it to him. Out there he was using a less ornate sabre!

The young mountaineer slipped the blade out of the sheath and once more read the engraved inscription.

Something rose in his throat, and he gulped it down. He spoke aloud, and his words sounded unnatural in the empty room.

"The Emperor of China sent for him--and he wouldn't go," said the boy.

"The Emperor of j.a.pan sent for him--and he couldn't refuse. That's the character of gentleman that's spent years trying to make a man of me."