There was deep silence in the camp kitchen.  The crackling of wood that fell apart, the splashing of the waves of the lake on the pebbles by the shore were the only sounds on earth.  For a long minute the men stood as if rooted; the colonel, poised and dramatic, and, I stirred to the depths of my soul by this great ceremony which had come out of the skies to its humble setting in the forest—­the men and the colonel and I, we all watched Rafael.

And Rafael slowly, yet with the iron tenacity of his race, got back his control.  “My colonel,” he began, and then failed.  The Swallow did not dare trust his broken wings.  It could not be done—­to speak his thanks.  He looked up with black eyes shining through tears which spoke everything.

“Tomorrow,” he stated brokenly, “if we haf a luck, my colonel and I go kill a moose.”

They had a luck.

ONLY ONE OF THEM

It was noon on a Saturday.  Out of the many buildings of the great electrical manufacturing plant at Schenectady poured employees by hundreds.  Thirty trolley-cars were run on special tracks to the place and stood ready to receive the sea streaming towards them.  Massed motor-cars waited beyond the trolleys for their owners, officials of the works.  The girl in blue serge, standing at a special door of a special building counted, keeping watch meantime of the crowd, the cars.  A hundred and twenty-five she made it; it came to her mind that State Street in Albany on a day of some giant parade was not unlike this, not less a throng.  The girl, who was secretary to an assistant manager, was used to the sight, but it was an impressive sight and she was impressionable and found each Saturday’s pageant a wonder.  The pageant was more interesting it may be because it focussed always on one figure—­and here he was.

“Did you wait, long?” he asked as he came up, broad-shouldered and athletic of build, boyish and honest of face, as good looking a young American as one may see in any crowd.

“I was early.”  She smiled up at him as they swung off towards the trolleys; her eyes flashed a glance which said frankly that she found him satisfactory to look upon.

They sped past others, many others, and made a trolley car and a seat together, which was the goal.  They always made it, every Saturday, yet it was always a game.  Exhilarated by the winning of the game they settled into the scat for the three-quarters of an hour run; it was quite a worth-while world, the smiling glances said one to the other.

The girl gazed, not seeing them particularly, at the slower people filling the seats and the passage of the car.  Then:  “Oh,” she spoke, “what was it you were going to tell me?”

The man’s face grew sober, a bit troubled.  “Well,” he said, “I’ve decided.  I’m going to enlist.”

She was still for a second.  Then:  “I think that’s splendid,” she brought out.  “Splendid.  Of course, I knew you’d do it.  It’s the only thing that could be.  I’m glad.”