Part 25 (1/2)

”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 generals.h.i.+p.