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Most of the boys were away, scattered along the now advancing front but by night some of them began to straggle back. Poor Finzer and Brodno would never come back. That both Lafe and his companion well knew. But they had died like true men, fighting for the cause they believed in. Captain Byers was also at the front, now many miles to the east.
And then, almost magically as it seemed, the thin veneering of civilization on the two men seemed to be cast off like the bark of the trees around them, and they lounged before each other in aboriginal freedom. Mr. Byers removed his restraining duster and undercoat. Mr. Langworthy resigned his dirty white jacket, his collar, and unloosed a suspender, with which he played.
Then he produced the remnant of a package of chocolate drops, part of the contents of a box recently received from home. "Like candy?" he asked, putting some of the candy in the child's lap. "Good candy right, from my home across the sea." This in such French as Byers could command, which was plenty for the purpose.
Annoyed but not alarmed, as it seemed probable that the missing man had fallen in a drunken sleep in some hidden shadows, he returned to the house, when it occurred to him that Byers might have sought the bar-room for some liquor. But he was still more surprised when the barkeeper volunteered the information that he had seen Mr. Byers hurriedly pass down the side veranda into the highroad.
She edged away from him, for in the expression of his agreeable emotion he had pushed nearer to her on the sofa. "Why, Tweet is Mrs. Byers, now; court let her take back her maiden name. I didn't oppose the divorce; nothing like peace in families, you know. Tweet was all right, and I hain't got anything to say against her.
"Yesh!" said Byers thickly, "my first wife shelected and picked out fer your shecond wife by your first like d d conundrum. How wash I t'know?" he said, with a sudden shriek of public expostulation "thash what I wanter know. Here I come to talk with fr'en', like man to man, unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about my shecond wife! Fr'en' drops out, carryin' off the whiskey.
About this time Brodno, waiting impatiently, gave a signal and the plane, propelled along gravel by mechanics, soon rose lightly in the air. Byers, having hauled Pete in, followed suit, waving good-night to Senator Walsen and the ladies.
The two opposing squadrons were about equal. Dividing into two columns, with Blaine heading one and Captain Byers the other, they bore directly off toward the enemy. Such a start had the Boches gotten, by somehow missing the Allied planes that were supposed to be picketing the front, that a direct attack was inevitable.
"Come here, you, Pete!" called the captain, half laughing at Pete's perplexed face. "You in here with me see?" "You take me to Boche 'stead of black-hole? I no do harm anyone." Pete spoke in a whining, ingratiating tone, but Byers only laughed, saying: "You are right, Pete. A mistake was made."
They both fought the thing, she selfishly, he unselfishly, for the Byers girl, with her clear, calm eyes and her dependable ways, was heavy on his heart. Ben's appeal for Bella was merely that of the magnetic male. She never once thought of his finer qualities. Her appeal for him was that of the frail and alluring woman. But in the end they married. The neighbourhood was rocked with surprise.
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