Adventure Magazine Cover — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PENNSYLVANIA LINE 13 Colonel Stewart, as he watched the empty tip of his thin right boot. “Or a Rohawk maid,” said Major Van Kuren, without pausing to think as he spoke. : Delightedly the goslings turned on him. “Ay,” drawled Farquar, in bland agree- ment, “they be terrible objects—Rohawk maids.” “Sure, and there’s nothing worse to meet in the dark,” said Ryan. ‘Send the heart leaping like a salmon in a fall—these Ro- hawk maids.” “Strike you deaf, blind—and dumb—” pursued Farquar, ‘‘as soon as look at you— these Rohawk maids.” “Banshees are preferable,” said Ryan, “for the basilisk, itseli—the monsters!”’ ‘“‘___. take this tisted twongue of mine!”’ sputtered the major. ‘ ’Tis Mohawk raid I meant,—and well ye knew it!”’ Wayne turned from the baiting of the for- tunately good-natured major, and spoke genially to the grinning deputation. ‘“‘Come,’’ he said, “‘if ye really have some mew complaint, out with it! What is it you're after?” “Our discharges, sir,’ said Barstow, be- fore Riddle could get his periods under weigh. “Your discharges!” exclaimed Wayne. “‘Heyaday, but here is novelty with a ven- geance! Whatwillitbenext? Would ye not like to have me noose and tie the north wind, while ye warm your backs for a bit? Or maybe catch ye a will-o’-the-wisp with which to play hot-cockles! Don’t be bash- ful, man, speak your mind, and name your wish! Just name it—ye are free to ask for anything ye fancy!” Barstow’s eyes fell before the sarcasm, but his chin was thrust as he repeated— “Come to ask for our discharges, sir!”’ “Dot’s true, sir,” said Holtzburg. “The time of our ’listment being up,” added Riddle, ‘‘and us wishful to return to our homes, according to the terms of said ’listment.” “Lord help the man, but he argues like a lawyer!” cried Wayne impatiently. “In the name of heaven, why should you think that your term of enlistment is at an end?” The question was purely rhetorical, but Barstow took it literally. From an inside pocket of his rags he hauled out an equally tattered paper that slit down a crease as he unfolded it. ’ “Look here, sir,” he requested, “here ’tis. Three years ago today, I, and some nine out of every ten men that are left alive in the regiment, ‘listed—at your solicitation, sir—in the 4th battalion of the Pennsyl- vania Line for a period of three years, as is written down in black and white in this here paper, sir. And now we want our dis- charges, the time being up, and leave to re- turn to our homes, as is written, too.”’ “Ves, sir,’ said Riddle. ‘“Dot’s it,” said Holtzburg. “That’s it?’ snapped Wayne. “Not bya —— sight! You misread the meaning of the text. Look here,” he took the sheet from Barstow, and pointed to a certain line. “right there—you were enlisted for three years, or—mark this!—‘the duration of the war.’ And the war is not yet at an end. Far from it!” “Hail, Bellona!’’ Farquar saluted the goddess with a little backward flick of the hand, as if he shook a fall of phantom Mech- lin from the cuff of his shiny coat. ‘Hold thou the end far from us yet!”’ “Ay,” said big Colonel Butler, “we re- treat before defeat even as before the enemy.” “On the contrary,’”’ said Stewart, in genial gloom, ‘‘we have suffered defeat so often that it no longer holds any terrors for us. It becomes a habit, and troubles us no more than frost-bite or mosquitoes.”’ “Indeed, we were overwhelmed—van- quished—long since, yet,’’ Ryan shrugged expressively, “‘we seem to continue to go on being vanquished, but still manage to fight on, too, somehow.” ‘And will do so,” said Stewart, desper- ately cheerful, ‘‘until the odds at last be- come too great, and not defeat but annihi- lation overtakes us.” ‘The odds this day are four to one against us,” said Wayne. “And last winter they were seven to one. And if we could—and we did—live through such, we will con- tinue to survive when they are ten to one, twenty to one — or thirty to one, by God!’ He refolded the enlistment paper and returned it to its owner. “I’m sorry,” he said, ‘“‘but all I can do for you, in this matter, is to recommend that you go back to your regiments and say to them that it is impossible, under the present, precarious circumstances, to shorten the term of enlist- ment— You see that, don’t you, Ser- geant Riddle?’ He turned suddenly and COMICLO© S CO