THREE:"I heard," said Henry Joslyn, "that Corpril Elliott was the first to reach the rebel flag, he havin' much the longest legs, but jest as he grabbed it a big rebel knocked him, and then they all piled on to him, and about had him finished when Serg't Klegg reached there at a charge bayonets, and he bayoneted everybody in sight, until a sharpshooter in a tree shot him with an explosive bullet that tore his breast all to pieces, but he kept right on bayonetin' 'em till he dropped from loss o' blood. Then they fired a cannon at the sharpshooter and blowed him to pieces just as you'd blow a chippy to pieces with a bullet from a bear-gun.""I would not repeat myself if it were not for the urgency of this matter." Dr. Haenlingen's voice hardly echoed in the square small room. She stood staring out at the forests below, the coiling gray-green trees, the plants and rough growth. A small woman whose carriage was always, publicly, stiff and erect, whose iron-gray eyes seemed as solid as ice, she might years before have trained her voice to sound improbably flat and formal. Now the formality was dissolving in anger. "As you know, the mass of citizens throughout the Confederation are a potential source of explosive difficulty, and our only safety against such an explosion lies in complete and continuing silence." Abruptly, she turned away from the window. "Have you got that, Norma?"

THREE:Si walked down in front, in the rear of the line, superintending the operation.

THREE: