"Just the same, he did look mighty grim as he turned away," she finished, with a little smile at the memory, "and he said something about not being surprised if he got mad at the last minute and hitched on the rear platform, anyway."

"It's wonderful how eager they all are," said Betty, her eyes shining and a little catch in her voice. "I suppose there are slackers, lots of them, but so far I haven't met a boy who wasn't desperate at being given a 'safe berth' away from the firing line and danger.

"It never seems to enter their minds to be thankful that they don't have to run the risk of having their arms and legs shot off, or perhaps being blinded for life.

"And it isn't that they don't think of it, either," she went on, her face flushing with enthusiasm, "or realize what it means. Just the other night Will was talking to me, Gracie—you know he's always been almost as much my brother as yours—and he said, 'I tell you what, Betty, it isn't often I let the grim side of this war business get to me, and it's the same with the other fellows. Of course we know it's there, but we're willing to take the bad with the good for the sake of doing what we're pretty darn sure is the only thing to do. Only,' he added, slowly, 'we're none of us pretending to say that we enjoy the idea of being maimed or perhaps crippled for life. There's not one of us but who's praying that if we have to go, it will be a good swift bullet that will do the business.

"'But,' he added, with a smile—and I could have hugged him for that smile, girls. 'But, of course, as I said before, we're not thinking of that side of it. It's enough to know that if it comes, we'll know how to meet it.'"

"And th-that's my brother," cried Grace, half tearful, yet radiant with pride in him. "Those horrible old Huns won't have even half a chance when he gets at them."

"And Frank and Allen and Roy," added Mollie loyally. "You can't leave any one of our boys out, Gracie. They're all built on the same plan—as far as bravery is concerned."

"Of course, I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture of Roy as he had said good-bye—so youthfully gay, yet so strangely self-reliant.

And Mollie's eyes that could flash so wrathfully at times, were also soft with memory, and Amy, thinking of those last words that were almost, yes, so very near, a promise, flushed hotly and wondered if after all she ought—so soon—

"It's no wonder that we're proud of them—our boys," said Betty softly.



CHAPTER XIX

REAL TRAGEDY

A day or two went by during which the girls tried pluckily to go on with their duties about the Hostess House with bright and smiling faces. It was hard, though, to keep their thoughts from wandering to the four boys who were now on their way to face all the realities and all the horrors of the terrible war, and perhaps it was well that the leaving of so many made their duties lighter than usual.

On their return from the station after seeing the boys entrain they had found a letter from their friend, Mrs. Barton Ross, of their home town of Deepdale, head of the Young Women's Christian Association, under whose auspices the Hostess House at Camp Liberty was run. In this letter Mrs. Ross had said that she had sent to the girls a box of books for which they had sent a request—books all of which one boy or another had asked for, and which the regular Camp library had not been able to supply.

The books had now come, Mollie had learned on a visit to the postoffice, and as it was a heavy package she had got out the car and with the other girls had run down for it.

As the car rolled up to the curb and stopped once more before the Hostess House, Betty waved her hand to an upper window.

"There's Mrs. Sanderson," she explained as they got out of the automobile. "She looks kind of pathetic sitting up there all alone."

"She always looks pathetic to me," sighed Amy, winding an arm about the Little Captain as they ascended the steps. "But everybody looks sadder and more forlorn than usual the past few days."

"Well, we can't be sad and forlorn any longer," said Betty determinedly. "We came here to cheer people up, you know, and how we're going to do it by being doleful ourselves, I don't know. So, in the words of the vulgar—'here goes.' How's that?"

"That" was a rather forced and pitiful little smile, but it brought an answering one from Amy and another warm hug.

"You're just wonderful, Betty!" she said lovingly, "and we'll do just whatever you say. If you want us to smile, we'll smile, that's all. Of course, we have tried, but we'll try still harder."

Betty hugged back, and they went up the stairs toward the old familiar room, feeling better and more cheerful for their renewed good resolutions.

For a while the girls were busy unpacking the books and putting them in place. Then Betty announced her intention of calling on Mrs. Sanderson.

"I can't bear to think of her in there by the window all alone," she said. "It has been awfully hard for her to watch all those boys going away, knowing that her Willie wasn't among them. I might be able to comfort her a little."

"Let me go too," begged Amy, and arm in arm the two girls went on their little mission of kindness.

They knocked on the door, but, receiving no answer, pushed it open and stepped inside the room. The old lady was sitting in exactly the same position as when Betty had seen her from the car, almost an hour before.

She glanced up, a little startled when they spoke to her, and half rose to her feet. She looked dazed and very old and drawn. With a little cry of compassion, Betty ran over to her and gently forced her back into her chair.

"Did we startle you?" she asked anxiously. "We knocked, but you didn't answer, and we came right in. I'm sorry—"

"You needn't be, dearie." The old eyes twinkled and the old hand was very gentle as it patted Betty's cheek reassuringly. "I'm always glad to see you and I've told you to come right in any time. I was thinking very hard, I guess, and that's why I didn't hear you."

"Then we may stay a little while?" said Betty, relieved. "But please tell us if we'll be a bother," she added hastily, as the old woman turned once more to the window.

"No, no, I was hoping you would come," said the latter so eagerly that Betty knew her impulse had been a correct one. The old woman had wanted some one—some one who understood—to pour out her heart to.

"It was wonderful just to sit here and watch those boys who went, an' I've been thinkin' of it," she said, after a brief silence. "Only, somethin' inside o' me, I guess 'twas my heart, kept bleedin' an' cryin' out that my boy should have been among them—my little brown-eyed Willie who used to sit out in the sun readin' every minute he could get. I can see him now, sittin' there, jest as if 'twas yesterday—" Her voice trailed off, and in a silence eloquent with sympathy the girls waited for her to go on.

"But I wanted to tell those boys too," she cried, straightening up with sudden fire, "that my Willie wasn't only a reader an' as bright as a dollar,—he could fight, too. He'd have made a soldier to be proud of.

"It wouldn't be near so bad," she added, turning to the girls with such a depth of tragedy in her eyes that their hearts bled for her, "if I could only be sure o' his bein' dead. It's the heartbreak of not knowin' that's goin' to kill me in the end!

"But there," she said, catching herself up as though ashamed of the outburst, "seems like I talk to you little ladies more'n I ever talked to anybody else in all my life. Seems like it's jest been bottled up inside o' me so long it's jest got to come out.

"I wish you'd tell me," she added, looking at them wistfully, "when it bothers you, an' I'll jest bottle it all up again twice as tight as 'twas before."

"Oh, please," cried Amy, taking one of the work-worn hands and pressing it earnestly between her own warm ones. "We just feel honored to think that you trust us enough and like us enough to tell us these things. If you didn't we'd be miserable!"

"Indeed we should," added Betty fervently.

Mrs. Sanderson looked from one of the flushed earnest faces to the other, and her eyes filled slowly with tears.

"I never thought," she said tremulously, "that there were girls like you in the world."

Several days later Mrs. Watson, their chaperone, and the head of the Hostess House, called the girls to her for a consultation, and, wondering what new thing was in store for them, they responded to the call.

The boys had been gone for a week, time enough to get accustomed—a little—to the feeling of loss that had so oppressed them during the first few days.

And now there were rumors of new soldiers arriving at the camp and of more than enough work for the girls at the Hostess House to keep their minds continually occupied.

And, in fact, it was to discuss that very situation that Mrs. Watson had called them to her this morning.

"Well, girls," she said when they had seated themselves in characteristic attitudes about the room, "we've had a little breathing spell now, just enough time to rest up before the next onslaught."

She paused over the word, smiled, and they smiled back at her.

"Of course that means," Betty interpreted, "that not only the boys but hundreds of their relatives and friends are coming to be entertained and housed and amused."

"Exactly," nodded Mrs. Watson. "And, of course, the work that you girls have done—"

"And you," Betty interjected loyally, but Mrs. Watson brushed the interruption aside with a wave of her hand, though she flushed happily.

"Of course I've done my part of it," she agreed modestly. "But equally of course I couldn't have done it if you girls hadn't stood shoulder to shoulder with me. And," she added, enthusiastically, "it has been more the spirit with which you did the work than the actual work itself that has won such a reputation for our Hostess House here."

"'Reputation!'" repeated Mollie wonderingly, then added with an impish inflection: "Oh, have we one of those things?"

"We have," responded Mrs. Watson, with an indulgent smile. "And, whether deserved or not, modesty would prompt us to say that it is not, of course—" and the girls laughed amusedly. "Our reputation is unusually good and unusually widespread. So good, in fact, that the boys are glad when they find they are to be sent to Camp Liberty."

"Yes," Betty nodded thoughtfully, "several boys have told me that, but I thought they only said it in a spirit of gratitude, or perhaps, as flattery."

"That is modest," said Mrs. Watson with another smile. "But," she added, leaning forward in her chair and speaking earnestly, "I honestly think that you girls don't even begin to realize what a wonderful work you have been doing right here in this little city that sprang up over night. It isn't a small thing, you know—sending thousands of our boys away cheered and strengthened, armed to meet the future—better men, just for having met you.

"And the mothers and wives and sweethearts who have been entertained so royally and permitted to say good-bye to their loved ones under the very best and cheeriest conditions possible—why, they have spoken to me of you with tears in their eyes!"

There were tears in their own eyes as the girls smiled happily at her.

"But it's been such fun," Mollie protested, "just seeing how much you can make people forget their troubles."

"That's it," Mrs. Watson broke in quickly. "That's the spirit that has made your work here such a wonderful success. You've done it—and whether you will admit it or not, sometimes we've all been so tired at night we've ached in every joint and muscle when we've crawled into bed—because you loved to do it and because it was 'fun' to make people forget their troubles, if only for a little while, and be happy.

"That's the secret, dear girls, and that's why the boys are all eager to be assigned here. Also, the boys in the permanent garrison will sing your praises to the few who have not already heard them, and of course we shall have to live up to their opinion of us."

"Well, if just doing what we have been doing gives us such a reputation," said Amy soberly, "I guess it won't be hard to live up to it in the future."

"Only," said Mrs. Watson warningly, "the work before us is apt to be very much more trying and arduous than any we have yet had. The camp is going to be filled to overflowing, and of course that will mean entertaining continually for us.

"We may even," she added thoughtfully, "have to quarter some of the relatives and friends outside the camp in private homes, and, of course, it will be up to us to find those homes."

"You mean we are to go canvassing—the way we did that Thanksgiving?" queried Betty.

Mrs. Watson nodded, and Grace groaned.

"Well," said the latter, "I don't care. In fact, I rather like the idea if only my feet will hold out."

"They look pretty durable," remarked Mollie gravely.

"But you don't know how they feel," retorted Grace, wiggling one foot in its trim slipper experimentally. "Every time I get a pair of shoes I have to get a size larger, and you know," argumentatively, "at that rate I'll be a freak and you'll be able to charge admission for a look at me."

"Good," cried Mrs. Watson, laughing with the others. "I knew some one would be clever enough to think up a new way of making money. Keep it right up, Grace."

"Yes," said Betty drolly, "just think of the good you can do!"



CHAPTER XX

THE MOTORCYCLIST AGAIN

"What a glorious morning!" cried Betty, raising her face to the brilliant sunshine. "I feel as if I could walk miles and miles and miles and never stop."

"Well, it's lucky for you that you do," sighed Grace. "Perhaps you'd be willing to walk a few for me."

"Oh, don't give up, Grade dear, before we've even started," cried Betty, giving a little exuberant skip with the sheer joy of being alive. "Anyway," she added, with inspiration, "if you get tired you and Mollie can go back and get the car."

"And have to walk miles to get it," Grace objected. "No, Betty, you'll have to think up something better than that."

"I wouldn't waste my time on such a lazy person, Betty," said Mollie, who was walking briskly ahead with Amy. "I suppose we might have brought the car," she added, after a minute, "only it seems foolish when you have to stop at every house you come to."

"It not only seems foolish—it is foolish," said Betty cheerily.

"Oh, I tell you what," cried Amy, seized with sudden inspiration, while the girls stared at her expectantly.

"Hasten, Amy," cried Mollie, in a mock agony of suspense. "Do not keep us waiting in this fashion."

"Well," said Amy with a twinkle, "let's buy a couple of the worst sounding horns we can find in town, go back and get Mollie's car—"

"Yes?" they queried breathlessly.

"And go through the streets tooting the horns until we've collected a crowd," finished Amy triumphantly.

"And when we've got it, what'll we do with it?" queried Mollie reasonably.

"Well, I should think you'd guess the rest," remarked Amy. "We could just tell 'em what we'd come for, that's all, and ask all who were willing to take a 'guest' to say 'aye.'"

"Never mind, dear, there's still hope," remarked Mollie, patting her arm soothingly. "The doctor said, with absolute rest and quiet, you might get over it."

Betty chuckled. Grace did not, for the reason that her feet were beginning to hurt and she did not feel in a chuckling mood.

"Well, I don't know but what there's something in your idea after all, Amy," she said, while Amy looked immensely gratified. "I'm in favor of anything that cuts out walking."

"'Cuts out'?" queried Mollie reprovingly.

"Yes, cuts out," returned Grace, sticking to her guns. "What do you say, Betty? Don't you think Amy has the right idea?"

"Well," said Betty diplomatically, while her eyes twinkled at the imaginary spectacle of whirling through the streets of the town, blowing raucously on horns and making stump speeches from the running board of the machine, "it would at least have the advantage of being spectacular—"

"There, Mollie!" cried Amy, not waiting for her to finish, the light of triumph in her eyes. "You see it's three to one. Now, what have you got to say for yourself?"

"Nothing," remarked Mollie dryly, "except to suggest that you wait until Betty gets through. I imagine she hadn't said all she wanted to on the subject."

"Hadn't you, Betty?" queried Amy, a trifle disconcerted and looking back at Betty over her shoulder.

"We-ll," said Betty slowly, "I never say a thing can't be done until it's tried—"

"There!" Grace exclaimed, but Betty interrupted her.

"But," she said hastily, "I think it might be just as well to try the less spectacular method first. Don't you?"

Both Amy and Grace heaved a great sigh of disappointment.

"For one beautiful moment," said Grace plaintively, "I dared to hope that you were with us, Betty."

"Goodness, I am!" exclaimed the latter, wilfully misunderstanding. "With you to the death, if need be. But look," she added as they turned a corner, "Methinks we have pretty nearly reached the scene of our activity."

"Methinks it's pretty nearly time," groaned Grace.

"I tell you what we'll do," suggested Betty, as they crowded eagerly about her. "It will save time, and, I think, be the easiest way. We'll each one take an entire street, visit as many of the houses as possible within an hour, and at the end of that time we'll meet here again and each make her report."

The others agreed to this, and they separated, each determined to find as many boarding places as possible for those relatives and friends who wished to be near their soldier boys.

At the end of the hour they met again, looking a little warm and tired, but immensely triumphant.

Grace was wildly excited.

"Yes, I found places," she said, in answer to a question from Betty. "But what do you think?—I saw that motorcyclist."

"You did!" came in a chorus from the other Outdoor Girls.

"Of course you mean the rascal who ran down poor Mrs. Sanderson," came from Mollie.

"The same. I was so startled I hardly knew what to do. He was coming from a small hotel—not a very nice place."

"Maybe that is where he plays cards," suggested Betty.

"As soon as he saw me he leaped on his motorcycle and left in a hurry, before I had a chance to say a word to him."

"What a shame that you didn't have a chance to have him arrested," cried Amy.

The girls talked the matter over for several minutes. As the motorcyclist was gone there seemed nothing they could do.

"But we'll keep our eyes open for him," declared Betty.

"I think this is the most wonderful town," Mollie remarked after a pause. "Why there's hardly a house that I visited but what the people were willing to accommodate at least one boarder, and in some cases two or three, and, what's more," waving her hand enthusiastically, "several of them didn't even want to take any money for it."

"And I found almost the very same thing," agreed Betty, as they linked arms and started on the homeward walk. "I guess we have enough promises to start with now, and I don't think we'll have any trouble finding quarters for all who want them."

"I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Watson is right about our reputation," said Grace, a little ruefully. "Because the minute Mrs. Robinson opened the door and saw me she said she hadn't the slightest idea what I was going to ask her this time, but, seeing it was one of the girls from the Hostess House, she expected to say yes, anyway."

The girls laughed and for some time afterward walked on in silence, busy with their thoughts. Then suddenly Betty spoke.

"Girls," she said soberly, "Mrs. Sanderson is almost well again and I don't think we'll be able to keep her with us very much longer."

"What do you mean?" they cried together, their voices showing how very real their concern was.

"Well," Betty explained slowly, "it seems she overheard some of us girls talking about the rush of work in store for us and got it into her head that we might need her room."

"But I don't see what difference that makes," protested Mollie. "As long as we're doubling up and giving her our room."

"Well, of course, it appears that way to us," replied Betty, shaking her head thoughtfully. "But I'm afraid we can't hope to make her see it so. Anyway, Mrs. Watson said she spoke to her about it and said she would be going as soon as she had a chance to say good-bye to the 'young ladies.'"

For a long time the girls stared straight before them, deeply troubled. It was not so much the thought of losing the old lady, although, having grown fond of her, they would miss her badly, as it was the realization that here was one person in deep trouble, whose burden they could not seem in any way to lighten.

"And we haven't been able to get hold of that motorcyclist," mourned Mollie. "It makes me simply ferocious," she added, with sudden vigor, "to think of his getting away with a thing like that and not even a day in prison to show for it."

"And now with the boys gone," added Amy, "I don't suppose we'll have a chance in the world of capturing him."

"Humph," groaned Grace disgustedly, the temporary glow of success fading before the torture of aching feet, "I don't see that they helped very much when they were here. We did the suggesting, and all they did was to laugh at our suggestions—"

"Well, there's no use in saying things about them now they're gone," said Amy, but Mollie caught her up indignantly.

"Goodness, Amy," she cried, "it may not be your fault that you have a gloomy disposition, but you don't need to sound exactly like a funeral!"

At this moment they were startled by the sound of a machine coming behind them at furious speed. Some chickens, crossing the road and pecking lazily as they went, scurried with alarmed squawking into the woods on either side.

The girls, turning, started, gasped, then stared at each other.

"The motorcyclist!" cried Mollie, as they turned and ran after the fast disappearing machine.



CHAPTER XXI

THE CHASE

"I—I—don't know what we're running after him for!" gasped Mollie. "We haven't got a chance—in the world—of catching—him."

"Look," panted Betty, pointing to a machine at the side of the road with a man in chauffeur's uniform sitting behind the wheel, "maybe we can get him! Quick—"

Betty's action always followed hard upon the heels of impulse, and before any of the girls had time to realize what she was going to do she had darted across the road, had said a few excited words, and was tumbling into the tonneau.

Without stopping to question, the girls followed, jumping in beside her, and the chauffeur, after one surprised look, touched his cap and the machine leapt forward like a wild thing.

Mollie had time, even in her excitement, to wonder how Betty had managed it.

"I think she hypnotizes them," she muttered to herself.

And all Betty had really said to the man was, "Please follow that motorcyclist! We mustn't lose sight of him!" and the man, obeying that impulse for adventure that is in all of us, had complied.

The motorcyclist had sped around the corner and darted into one of the side streets. A few minutes later the chauffeur turned the same corner with a recklessness that made them gasp, turned it just in time to see their quarry disappearing round another corner.

"Gosh, that fellow can coax some speed out of that machine of his!" cried the man at the wheel. "But if you young ladies don't mind a little danger, we may catch him yet."

"Oh, please don't think about us," cried Betty, her hands clutching the back of the seat, her eyes straining after the flying speck that seemed to be growing smaller every second. "Oh, we must catch him,—we must! It would be awful to lose him now!"

"Well, here goes," responded the man behind the wheel, and under his skillful touch the machine leapt forward like a spirited horse at the touch of the lash.

"That's it, that's it!" cried Mollie, almost beside herself with excitement. "Just hear that engine purr! He can't get away from us now!"

"Oh, if we could only take him back to Camp Liberty with us!"

"I thought so," said the chauffeur, and even in their excitement they had time to look in surprise at his back.

"Wh-what did you think?" stammered Betty.

"That you were the girls up at the Hostess House that everybody is talking about," he told her, while the girls fairly gasped with surprise at this proof of their widespread fame. "That's why I didn't ask questions but just did as I was told," he added. And somehow they knew, though they could not see his face, that he was grinning. "You see, I'd always heard that you most always got what you set out to get, and I didn't waste time arguin'," he finished.

The girls laughed hysterically, and Betty said, with a funny little inflection:

"Sounds as if we were very strong-minded. But we don't care about that," she added, once more fixing her gaze anxiously on the road before them, "if we can only catch that man."

"May I ask who he is, miss?" asked the man.

"He's—he's a—criminal!" returned Betty, her little fists clenched fiercely.

"A criminal?" he repeated with interest. "May I ask what kind?"

"A murderer," cried Mollie fiercely, adding, as the man started and the girls looked at her in surprise: "Well, he might just as well have been. He didn't even stop to see whether he was or not, which is about the same thing."

There was a sound from the front seat that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle, but not being quite sure, the girls could do nothing whatever about it.

"But look—he's getting away from us!" wailed Amy suddenly, and once more all their attention was focused on the chase.

And, quite suddenly, while they watched, the motorcyclist disappeared from view as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.

A few seconds later, with a grinding of brakes, the car stopped at the spot where he had disappeared, and the girls looked at one another despairingly.

The path that he had taken seemed no more than a broad foot path through the woods, so narrow that no machine could follow him, and of course there was no chance of catching him on foot.

"He got away from us!" cried Grace, voicing a rather self-evident fact.

"I'm afraid so, miss," said the man, and he seemed so genuinely disappointed that they looked at him gratefully. "The man must be rather much of a dare-devil, your criminal," he added, eyeing the bumpy path thoughtfully. "An ordinary rider wouldn't be able to go two yards along that path without coming to grief."

"Do you know where this path leads to?" asked Betty, struck with a sudden inspiration. "If there's another road we might circle round and head him off."

"Sorry, miss," he said, "but the road that path leads to is nothing but a wagon road, and we'd have to go several miles before we'd cross it. And the chances are," he added, "that the fellow would double back upon himself and we'd have the run for nothing."

Betty shook her head resignedly, for, hard as it was to relinquish the man, all that the chauffeur had said was founded on hard common sense and she could see there was no alternative.

"I guess you're right," she said at last, after a pause during which the girls had looked at her hopefully. Betty so often found a way where no one else could that they never completely gave up hope until she herself relinquished it.

So now they sighed and climbed soberly back into the machine.

"Where to?" inquired the chauffeur, as he turned the car and headed back the way they had come. "If you're going back to the camp," he suggested, "I can take you there. Or anywhere you say."

"You've been awfully good," cried Betty, with real gratitude in her voice. "But you don't have to take us away back to camp. If you will drop us at the end of the road we can walk back." All this despite sundry vigorous and desperate shakings of Grace's head and pantomimic pointings toward her feet. At the conclusion of Betty's sentence she groaned, but brightened up again at the chauffeur's response.

"It won't be any trouble," he said, "to take you all the way back to camp. In fact"—a little shyly—"I'd like to."

"Then we'd be very, very glad to accept," said Betty cordially. "For we have walked a long way and are rather tired."

At the gates of Camp Liberty they got out of the car, thanked the chauffeur, and while they were hesitating whether or not to offer him money for his trouble, the latter turned the car and, with a last lifting of his cap and waving of his hand, was gone.

"Isn't he nice?" sighed Amy, as they started toward the Hostess House, Grace limping a little and bringing up the rear. "Meeting a man like that gives you new faith in human nature."

"Goodness, Will had better look out," chaffed Mollie, a little gleam of humor shining through her weariness. "I always thought you had it in you to run off with a chauffeur, Amy."

Before Amy had time to retort they saw a stalwart and familiar figure swinging toward them and recognized Sergeant Mullins.

"Good afternoon," he called to them, with the smile that always so surprisingly lighted up his usually grave face. "You look as if you had had rather an exciting time of it."

"Oh, we did almost have such a beautiful adventure!" cried Mollie, her eyes sparkling with the memory of it.

"And all we really got," said Grace gloomily, "were four pairs of sore feet."

Sergeant Mullins laughed at her with the rest, then asked, with real interest:

"But the adventure that you almost had,—would you mind telling me about it?"

Whereupon Betty launched into a full and graphic account of the chase in somebody else's automobile after an unknown criminal who, at the last minute, had escaped in an apparently impossible manner.

"And that's all there is to it," she finished plaintively. "After all our trouble and everything, we find ourselves just where we were before."

The sergeant looked very grave.

"The man was a cad," he said, "to knock down an old woman that way and then not stop to see how badly she was hurt. I wish you could have won out to-day. Could you give a good description of him?"

"Yes, I can," cried both Amy and Grace in the same breath, and thereupon proceeded to do it without delay. At the description the sergeant's interest grew and his face flushed with excitement.

When they had finished, Betty, who had been watching his face closely, unable to restrain her curiosity longer, burst forth an eager question.

"Have you seen the man, Sergeant?"

"I think I have—often," he replied slowly, adding as they turned incredulous eyes upon him. "If I'm not mistaken, this criminal of yours is one of the most famous card sharpers of the day."



CHAPTER XXII

STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS

For a moment the girls stared. Then Sergeant Mullins was besieged with a veritable flood of questions.

"He hangs out mostly at Thomasville, a town about fifteen miles from here," the sergeant explained, when at last the girls had realized that if they ever hoped to learn anything at all they must give the man a chance to speak. "And he makes most of his money by skinning the rookies."

"You mean," cried Betty, translating camp slang into intelligible English, "that he gets the newly enlisted men to play with him before they have a chance to learn his reputation, and of course gets all their money, because his game is crooked?"

"Exactly," agreed Sergeant Mullins, his grave face clouding angrily. "And equally, of course, it's the week following pay day when he makes his big haul. I hope you succeed in getting him," he said, turning earnestly to Betty. "And if there's anything I can do to help, you can count on me."

Betty thanked him, and the girls watched the Sergeant's straight, retreating back with thoughtful eyes.

"Well, it's a comfort anyway," said Mollie, as they turned and went into the house, "to know that he's as bad as we thought he was. And perhaps," she added hopefully, "Sergeant Mullins will be able to help us."

It was more than a week later when the first eagerly looked for letters began to arrive from overseas. It was one day when the promised rush of soldiers into the camp had been fulfilled and the girls were particularly busy entertaining and finding comfortable quarters for their relatives and friends that Mollie whispered the joyful news into Betty's ear.

"Letters!" she cried. "Letters, honey! Here are yours, two of them, and each one of us others got one apiece. We've decided not to open them until to-night, when we'll have time to read them in comfort. If you'll wait, too—"

"Of course," promised Betty, eagerly accepting her portion of the precious correspondence. "And they're thick ones, Mollie, and—"

"Both from Allen," Mollie finished mischievously, looking back over her shoulder to enjoy Betty's blush.

And that night, when they should have been tired out with the day's unusually hard work, the girls assembled in their one big room, feeling more wide awake than ever before in all their lives.

"Oh, hasn't it been perfectly awful," cried Mollie, facing them with shining eyes, "to have to go around calmly for hours and hours as if nothing had happened?"

"With a letter just begging to be read, too!" put in Betty, two fever spots of excitement on her cheeks. "I don't think I could ever do it again."

"Well, it's all over now," said Amy, taking her own thick and promising looking letter from her silk blouse where it had rustled and crackled betrayingly all day. "I don't know about you girls, but I just can't wait another second."

"Oh, please wait just a moment until I get my shoes off," begged Grace, sinking down on the edge of the bed and removing the shoes from her aching feet. "Oh dear," she moaned, "I know I'll have to get a size larger next time, and if I do I'll be ashamed to be seen in the street."

"Well, even my patient and much-tried pedal extremities feel a little the worse for wear to-night," admitted Mollie, as she flung a shoe vindictively to the farthest corner of the room.

"And mine," agreed Betty, taking up the plaint. "I tell you what," she added. "Let's all just get undressed and tumble into the big bed and—enjoy ourselves."

The suggestion was unanimously accepted, and thereafter various soft and filmy garments flew thick and fast as the girls got ready for the treat which had been postponed all through the long, long day,—almost the longest they had ever known.

"Come on, Gracie," called Mollie, as barely five minutes later three figures sat propped up in the bed, waiting impatiently for the fourth. "What's the use of primping to-night? Nobody's going to see you."

"You flatter yourself," drawled Grace, as she turned away from the mirror. "Anyway, I once read that a girl should never allow herself to look homely, even when she's alone."

"Goodness, if I have to work so hard to be beautiful," retorted Mollie, holding her letter up to the light in a vain attempt to read its contents through the envelope, "I'd rather be good and homely and comfortable."

"If all wishes were so easily granted," Grace began, but at the look in Mollie's eyes thought better of it. "I meant," she corrected herself blandly, "that, of course, you can never be anything but beautiful, Mollie."

"Well, I don't know, of course," said Mollie, with the same vengeful light in her eyes, "but I'm always suspicious of any one who goes to extremes."

"Never mind your suspicions, Mollie," cried Betty, with a happy ring in her voice, as the last of the quartette climbed in under the covers. "All that really interests me now is the fact that I have a couple of letters that are just begging to be read."

"Yes, and I'd like to know if that's fair," said Grace, looking injured. "We only got one apiece, while here you are rolling in luxury—"

"And they're both in the same handwriting—Allen's of course," added Amy, peeping over Betty's shoulder. "Why does he write you two letters that he knows will both reach you in the same mail, Betty?"

"Just to be original, I suppose," answered Betty, striving to speak calmly while a hot flush mounted to her forehead. "Anyway," she added lightly, "I suppose the best way to satisfy our curiosity would be to read our letters and find out."

"Oh, I forgot," cried Grace, pushing back the covers and slipping out of bed. "There's just one thing better than reading letters."

"Now what are you after?" cried Mollie despairingly. "Well," she added, tearing open her letter decidedly, "there's one thing certain,—I'm not going to wait another minute!"

"Well, nobody asked you to," retorted Grace, slipping back into bed with the precious candy box under her arm. "And, what's more," she added threateningly, "if you're going to be uncivil, I won't ask you to share my candies."

"Goodness! now isn't that the limit?" cried Betty suddenly, and they looked at her in surprise. She, in her turn, having thought aloud, flushed and turned back to the letter. "I'm sorry," she stammered. "I really didn't mean to interrupt you."

"No you don't, Betty Nelson!" cried Mollie, slipping a hand over Allen's letter and forcing Betty to meet her eyes. "We won't any of us read another word till you tell us what you were going to say."

"Well, you don't need to," Betty was beginning when she met Mollie's eyes and laughed resignedly.

"Oh, all right," she capitulated. "I was simply going to say that the nosy old censor crossed out a whole line just at the most interesting part."

"What was it?" coaxed Amy teasingly. "Come, Betty dear, tell us what he said."

"Goodness!" cried Betty crossly, getting redder every moment, and knowing it, "didn't I tell you the censor crossed it out?"

"You know very well that wasn't what we meant," cried Mollie, with a frightful frown. "Amy was referring to the sentiments on both sides of the censored part."

"Oh well, you could hardly expect," Betty was beginning, when Amy, who had been peeping over her shoulder clapped a hand to her mouth too late to check a sudden exclamation.

"Oh girls!" she cried gleefully. "What I saw! What I saw!"

"Amy Blackford," Betty's eyes were black with real anger now, "I don't know how you could do such a thing. I didn't think it of you!"

Not only Amy, but the other girls were frightened by this sudden change in their usually good-natured Little Captain, and Amy hastened to make amends.

"I'm sorry, Betty dear," she said, flushing with real shame beneath Betty's accusing eyes. "I didn't mean it—truly I didn't. And I'll never do it again, never!"

"Oh, all right," replied Betty, controlling herself with an effort and turning back to the letter. "I'm sorry I said anything, Amy, if you didn't mean it."

There was a little constrained silence after that, no one knowing just how to clear the rather electric atmosphere. They went on reading absorbedly, only the crackling of the paper as they turned a page breaking the deep stillness of the room.

It was Betty who finally relieved the tension.

"If that doesn't sound just like Roy," she said, and they looked up expectantly, relieved at the naturalness of her tone. "Allen says that he—Roy, that is—was very much impressed with his first sight of a camouflaged ship. Said he had devised a fine scheme of killing off the German army in a hurry. He'd disguise himself as a piece of Limburger cheese, and when the Huns came running to him, he'd simply give them a gentle little tap on the head."

"Humph," snorted Mollie contemptuously, "how long do you suppose he'd be able to keep that up?"

"He says they'd never suspect the truth," Betty chuckled. "They'd simply think it was a particularly husky piece of cheese!"



CHAPTER XXIII

THE MIRACLE

It was only a few days later that the wonderful, the incredible thing happened!

The girls were returning from a rather hurried excursion to a near-by town when they came face to face with the motorcyclist. His motor had evidently stalled, and he was standing in the middle of the road tinkering with it.

Paralyzed by the suddenness of the thing, the girls just stood still and stared until the man, evidently feeling their eyes upon him, turned slowly about and faced them.

He seemed to recognize them immediately, for his first look of bewilderment was followed quickly by one of fear, and with an abrupt motion he turned back to his machine.

"Now we have him, what are we going to do with him?" whispered Mollie, a comical look of chagrin on her face. "We can't capture him all by ourselves, and we can hardly expect him to wait while we get some one."

"He is huskier than I thought," admitted Grace, adding suddenly, "Betty, what are you going to do?"

But Betty either did not hear or did not want to, for she was approaching the man without a backward glance in their direction. Though not knowing just what was about to happen, the girls followed loyally, close at her heels.

As for Betty, she simply stepped up close to the man and stood looking at him steadily, finally forcing him by sheer concentration to straighten up and meet her eyes.

"Well, who are you?" he demanded at last, gruffly.

"That was just the question I was about to put to you," Betty replied, and by her outward composure no one could possibly have guessed how hard her heart was beating. "We are really quite desirous of knowing all about you."

"May I ask," he said, his cruel mouth sneering under the absurd moustache, "what has happened to arouse this sudden interest?"

The sneer brought a flush to Betty's face and made her eyes glow angrily.

"You ought to know that without my telling you," she said coldly. "Perhaps you will remember, if I recall it to you, the day you knocked an old woman down in the middle of the road and then rode away without finding out how seriously you had injured her."

"I really don't know what you're talking about," the man replied, with an attempt to appear frank, which made his face more sinister than before. "You must have mistaken me for some one else."

"That's impossible." Mollie's voice was crisp and clear cut, and the man glanced with surprise and a shadow of alarm at this new assailant.

Then suddenly his manner of cool insolence changed, and he shot them a look that remained quiveringly in their memories long after the man himself had passed forever out of their lives.

"Whoever you are, you're fools," he said gruffly, menacingly. "And if you don't forget all about this thing you've been spouting about, I'll make it pretty darned unpleasant for you. Get me?" And, with a quick movement, he started his motor and leaped on his machine.

Betty sprang forward and desperately clutched the handle bars, calling on the girls for assistance, but he roughly pushed her aside. At the same moment the machine leapt forward and Betty knew that he would get away again.

Then it was the first miracle happened. Sergeant Mullins, out on a hike with some of the rookies from the camp, the sound of his approach deadened by the putting of the machine, appeared around the turn in the road, coming toward them. To keep from running into the men, which would have meant a nasty spill, the motorcyclist was forced to put on his brake.

The men would have gathered to one side of the road to let him pass, but Betty's shrill cry arrested them.

"Don't let him pass," she implored them desperately. "It's our criminal, Sergeant Mullins! Don't you see? The gambler!"

But Sergeant Mullins, in one swift glance, had already taken in the situation, and as the man tried to start his machine he sprang forward and grasped the handle bars, at the same time shouting orders to his men.

"Surround him, fellows!" he cried. "This man is under arrest!"

"What do you mean?" cried the gambler, his eyes glaring with the rage of a cornered animal.

"Don't waste your breath, Denham," retorted Sergeant Mullins coolly, "your reputation isn't any too good around these parts, you know, and you'll have plenty of chance to do your shouting to the judge.

"Never mind your machine," he added sharply, as the fellow's mean eyes glanced about desperately for means of escape. "The boys will take care of that. And," he added meaningly, "I have rather a life-sized impression that you won't be needing it again for some time to come!"

Denham shot him a vicious glance, and got off sullenly from his machine while a group of soldiers stepped up smartly to take charge of it.

With his prisoner safely guarded, Sergeant Mullins ordered the march back to camp, then drew in a long breath and looked at the girls.

"Well," he said, with his slow smile, "you did it that time."

"We!" cried Betty, her cheeks flushed with excitement and the exhilaration of success. "I should say you did the work while we looked on. Oh, I'm so happy—and so grateful to you."

"But I didn't do anything," he protested, smiling whimsically, as they turned to follow the soldiers and their prisoner. "I simply let the boys do the work while I looked on."

"Goodness! what do we care how it happened as long as it did?" cried Mollie happily. "Maybe now he'll see that he can't run down old ladies promiscuously and get away with it."

"Not with girls like you on his trail," said the sergeant admiringly.

"But what are you going to do with him, now you've got him?" asked Grace, repeating almost word for word the question Mollie had put only a few minutes before. "I suppose we've got to get out some sort of definite charge against him."

"Yes," said the sergeant thoughtfully. "We can put him in the guardhouse up at camp till we have a chance to get the township authorities up here. And," he added, turning to Betty, "I'd like to have an interview with that old lady of yours, if you can manage it. We'll have to have her evidence, you know."

"Oh, and isn't it lucky?" cried Betty, executing a little skip in her excitement. "She told us only this morning that she was feeling perfectly well again and would go away to-morrow. We were worrying ourselves sick about it, but couldn't think up a single plan to keep her with us. And if she had gone before this happened—" she stopped, overwhelmed by the mere contemplation of the tragedy.

"I still feel as if I were dreaming," said Amy, as they entered the camp gate. "It all happened so suddenly, and just when we were feeling so awfully blue."

"Well, I know I wasn't dreaming," said Grace plaintively, "because in my excitement I dropped two perfectly good candies in the road and forgot to pick 'em up."

They laughed at her, and Betty added whimsically:

"Perhaps it was just as well for your digestion that you did. I suppose you'll have to go to the guardhouse to explain about the prisoner," she rather stated than asked, turning to Sergeant Mullins.

"Yes," he said, adding, with a trace of hesitation: "It won't take long though, and if you don't mind waiting till I get back I'd like to have that talk with the old lady he knocked down. It's necessary to see her as soon as possible."

"Goodness, we don't mind waiting," cried Betty. "And you can't see her too quickly to suit us. We're just crazy to see the whole thing settled—"

"And that brute behind the bars," finished Mollie vindictively.

Sergeant Mullins laughed boyishly, saluted smartly, and turned on his heel to follow the boys who were fast bearing the prisoner to the guardhouse and from there to the just punishment that had been so long in overtaking him.

"Well," said Mollie, as she flopped down on the steps and favored the girls with a beaming smile, "now what have you got to say for yourselves?"

"More in truth than in modesty," twinkled the Little Captain, "I should say that we are pretty good."

"My! don't we love us?" queried Grace, fishing up from her pocket a much-mangled and sadly worn chocolate and calmly inserting it between two very pretty rows of white teeth. "It's really touching—"

"Oh, Grace, how can you think of candies at a time like this?" cried Mollie impatiently.

"Don't know," returned Grace, calmly nibbling. "It's a gift, I guess."

"Gracie, you're an awful goose," cried Betty, hugging her impulsively. "But I'm so happy, I'll forgive you even that—"

"It's you that ought to be forgiven for calling me names," returned Grace, in an injured tone of voice. "Goodness," she cried, a moment later, pointing a moist and tired chocolate in the direction of the horizon. "Am I mistaken, or is that the stalwart figure of our sergeant approaching in the distance?"

"Oh, it is, it is!" cried Betty, springing to her feet and fairly dancing in her excitement and impatience. "Oh, I can't wait! Why doesn't he hurry?"

As a matter of fact, the sergeant was hurrying very much indeed, for he was almost as eager as the girls to see the old lady and collect the evidence in the case against the motorcyclist.

He was panting as he sprang up the steps toward them and his eyes were bright with anticipation.

"I got back as soon as I could," he cried. "Now, if you can take me—"

The girls wasted no time in words, and led him swiftly up the stairs, pausing before Mrs. Sanderson's door.

"What shall we do if she's gone?" whispered Betty, a sudden panic seizing her. Then, without further delay, rapped smartly on the door.

At the answering "come in" they tumbled into the room, followed by Sergeant Mullins. Then it was the second miracle happened!

Mrs. Sanderson started, stared, then rose tremblingly to her feet.

"My Willie boy!" she cried, groping toward him, dazed, unbelieving, incredulous. "It's my boy, my little son—my—baby—"

Then Sergeant Mullins, with a hoarse cry, rushed across the room and gathered the little figure in his arms—strong, man's arms that crushed and hurt.

"Mother!" he cried. "Oh, my mother!"



CHAPTER XXIV

MYSTERY EXPLAINED

The girls stared for a moment, dazed, bewildered. Stared at the dark head bent in such passionate tenderness over the gray one, stared at the old hands patting the broad young shoulders, tremblingly, joyfully, incredulously, then, with a stifled gasp, turned and fled.

Betty closed the door softly and followed the girls into their own room where they sank down on arms of chairs or tables or the edge of the bed—any place—and went on staring, only this time at each other.

"Betty Nelson," Mollie broke out at last, her eyes dark and wide, her voice awed, "did you ever in your life hear of such a thing?"

"Of course I never did," answered Betty, her lips trembling, her eyes shining and wet. "Not since my fairy-story days, anyway," she added softly.

"But how," Grace demanded, still too dazed to think clearly, "can Mrs. Sanderson's son be William Mullins?"

"Goodness! how do we know?" returned Mollie, wiping two tears from the end of her nose. "It's all the biggest kind of a m-mystery, anyway. Oh, dear, has anybody got a handkerchief?" as two other tears threatened to make their appearance. "I didn't know I had it in me to be such a goose."

"We seldom do realize our possibilities," drawled Grace, but Mollie was too busy wiping away the traces of her weakness to notice the insult.

"And to think," Amy murmured softly, "that if that old motorcyclist hadn't knocked Mrs. Sanderson down, she would have gone away without finding her son, and the chances are she would never have seen him again."

"I suppose you think we ought to send the motorcyclist a vote of thanks," remarked Mollie dryly, recovering herself a little. "If he keeps on knocking old ladies down in the middle of the road and then gets himself arrested, he may be counted on to do a lot of good in the world."

"I don't see how you can say such silly things," Amy began hotly, when Betty broke in pleadingly:

"Please, please, girls!" she said, smiling as only Betty knew how to smile. "What is the use of quarreling about miracles? The most wonderful thing in all the world has happened, and what do we care how it happened? Just think of it!" she added, leaning forward eagerly. "Only this morning we were feeling discouraged and down-hearted because Mrs. Sanderson was going away to-morrow and we couldn't think of a thing to do to help her. Then all in one day, in an hour, really, we capture the motorcyclist and find her son for her. It's no wonder I can't seem to make myself believe I haven't dreamed it all," she finished, with such a look of utter happiness on her face that Mollie slipped an arm about her and hugged her fondly.

"You know, Betty," she said solemnly, "I'm almost beginning to have a superstitious belief in you."

"Goodness! Why?" cried Betty, while the other two looked at Mollie wonderingly. "What have I done now that you should say such things and treat me thus?"

"Why, I was just thinking," Mollie replied with rare earnestness, "that, as usual, if it hadn't been for you we probably wouldn't have arrested the gambler—or rather, given Sergeant Mullins a chance to—and so wouldn't have brought him here to find out he belonged to our little old lady."

"But I don't see how—" Betty was beginning in real bewilderment when Mollie interrupted her impatiently.

"I don't suppose you do," she said, with fond severity. "You never do give yourself credit for anything, anyway, Betty Nelson. But who was it, I'd like to know, that first had courage to go up and speak to that criminal?"

"Oh, that!" said Betty, sinking back relievedly. "Anybody could have done that."

"Perhaps anybody could," retorted Mollie practically. "But you notice nobody else did, don't you, Betty Nelson?"

"Well, I know, but that didn't have anything to do with capturing him," argued Betty, determined not to take any more than her share of the credit—and not that, if she could help it. "If Sergeant Mullins hadn't happened along just at that moment, he'd have gotten away from us the way he did those other times."

"Yes, but who delayed him, I'd like to know," Mollie flung back triumphantly, "and gave the Sergeant time to come along and finish up the work?"

"All right," laughed Betty. "I'll admit that much, since you insist. But what earthly difference does it make, anyway, as long as it's done?" she cried. "Just think," her voice trembled a little, "how happy those two must be in there! I—I—oh, I can't believe it yet."

"Well, but that's still troubling me," said Grace, so apropos of nothing at all that they just stared at her.

"Goodness, don't look at me like that," she cried irritably, getting up and walking round the room. "You know I always did hate mysteries."

"We should be very much obliged," said Mollie, with forced politeness, "if you would tell us what you're raving about."

"Goodness, don't you even see there is a mystery?" she cried, facing them impatiently. "How in the world could Sergeant Mullins ever be Mrs. Sanderson's son?"

"You'd better ask 'em," chuckled Mollie. "They both seemed so tolerably sure of it that we've taken it for granted. What's the deep, dark mystery?"

"Grace means," it was Amy who acted the peacemaker this time, "that it's strange about the name."

"And, of course, it is," Betty added gravely. "Sergeant Mullins should by all rights be Sergeant Sanderson."

"And Mrs. Sanderson couldn't have known about his being called Mullins," Grace broke in eagerly, "because we've spoken to her of Sergeant Mullins more than once, and she never acted as though more than casually interested."

"Well, but I suppose that's easily enough explained," said Mollie, who was in no mood for details—the actual occurrences being wonderful enough in themselves to occupy her attention for some time to come. "People often enough change their last names for some reason or other."

"Then you mean," said Grace, "that William Mullins is really William Sanderson?"

"A fair assumption," returned Mollie dryly. "Unless Mrs. Sanderson's name is Mullins."

"Perhaps the best way," suggested Betty peaceably, "would be to wait and let Mrs. Sanderson tell us about it."

"Wait—" Grace was beginning, when a gentle tap sounded on the door and Betty flew to open it.

On the threshold stood Mrs. Sanderson, her eyes red with weeping, yet her whole face so transformed with joy that the girls would hardly have recognized her as the Mrs. Sanderson of that morning. Instinctively they glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see the tall figure of Sergeant Mullins looming in the background, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"He's—he's gone," said the little old lady tremulously, seeming to interpret their glances, at the same time coming timidly into the room. "He told me to tell you," her face lighted up still more with that wonderful inward joy, "that he would have stayed and thanked you young ladies, but he'd made sort of an idiot of himself—so he said—an' would be around later, instead."

"And is he really—really—really your son?" cried Betty, unable to contain herself longer, pressing the old lady into a chair and kneeling down before her eagerly. "Oh, we knew you'd come and tell us! We've been so very happy for you."

"Yes, he's my Willie boy," answered the little old lady, speaking dreamily as though even yet she was not able to grasp the wonderful thing that had happened to her. "It's strange when I come to think of it how I knew him right away because, you see, I've always sort o' thought of him as my little son, my baby, and in my mind I've always seen him as he was that day he ran away. But he's really just the same—my little Willie boy—only taller and sort o' broader in the shoulders an' handsomer—" her voice broke and Betty slipped a sympathetic little hand in hers while the girls gathered closer.

"You see, I've been prayin' for this thing for a good many years," she went on quaintly, "an' it looks like Providence sort o' saw fit to answer me at last. An' He jest picked out the sweetes' little ladies He could find to be His instruments."

The girls laughed unsteadily and Betty's young hand tightened on the old one.

"We feel as if it all must be a fairy story," she said softly.

"That's jest what it is—a fairy story," cried the little old lady, turning those wonder-filled eyes upon them.

"It must have seemed sort o' strange to you about the name," she added, after a short pause.

Betty saw that Grace was about to interrupt, but a warning glance stopped her.

"You see, his real name is William Mullins Sanderson. But when he ran away he dropped the Sanderson so's they couldn't arrest him for somethin' he didn't do—poor little lad." Her voice was very soft and her eyes tender. "He would have come back to me, only he heard that I was dead and thought 'twasn't any use. He said he'd jest been eatin' his heart out, thinkin' of old days an' how he'd promised to make a fortune for us both an' buy a big house where I wouldn't ever have to work again 'less I wanted to. An' now he says," she straightened up and her eyes flashed with pride in him, "he says, soon's the war is over he's goin' to make that old dream come true.

"He'd been studyin' to be a lawyer, an' had jest passed his 'bar exams'—so he called 'em—when the war broke out, an' he jes' couldn't resist the call o' the bugle. O' course he couldn't!" Once more was heard that thrill of pride. "Wasn't he my Willie boy, who had the blood of fightin' ancestors in his veins as well as brains an' a love o' book larnin' from his pa?

"But he says when the war's over he's goin' back to his books an' make good, an'," with simple assurance; "I know he will. Jest think," she added dreamily, "my little son, a lawyer!

"But I ain't never goin' to forget," she cried, flinging her head up with a martial gesture, "that first of all, he was a soldier!"



CHAPTER XXV

TO "CARRY ON"

"I could be completely happy," sighed Betty, "if it weren't for just one thing."

It was more than a week after the wonderful discovery in their Sergeant Mullins as Mrs. Sanderson's long lost son, and until this afternoon the girls had hardly been able to find a minute to get together and discuss the remarkable affair.

But to-day they had secured very reliable substitutes to fill their places for a few hours and the Outdoor Girls had decided to make the most of this rare holiday.

Mollie had suggested a spin in the machine, and the girls had eagerly assented, anxious to blow the cobwebs of hard work and confinement from their brains and get out on the open road where they could think clearly and freely.

Exhilarated by the rushing air and the sunshine, Mollie put on extra speed, then gazed side-wise and wickedly at Amy.

"'Oh, Mollie, do be careful,'" she mimicked.

"'I don't care about dying, but I'd rather choose a neater death!'"

But for once Amy refused to bite. She simply smiled calmly and helped herself to another of Grace's fast disappearing chocolates.

"Go as far as you like, dear," was her surprising comment. "I feel rather wild and woolly myself to-day. Nothing you could do would bother me."

The girls looked surprised—Mollie anxious.

"Goodness," she said disconsolately, "that takes away half the fun. What's the use of teasing you when you won't tease?"

"Does seem rather a waste of time," remarked Amy, and they gaped anew.

"Goodness, what has come over the child?" asked Grace of Betty, adding with sudden suspicion, "She must have had a letter."

"Did you?" they cried all at once, fixing accusing eyes upon her.

"You must be joking," Amy answered plaintively. "I haven't had a letter for so long I don't know what it would look like."

"It is just about time we heard from the boys again," said Betty thoughtfully. "Has anybody been to the post-office to-day?"

It seemed nobody had, for everybody had been too busy; so Mollie made an abrupt turn, almost sending the car into a ditch, and headed back for town.

"Now what are you doing?" queried Amy plaintively.

"Going to remedy an awful mistake," Mollie replied shortly. "I couldn't enjoy my holiday if I thought there might be letters waiting for us."

Amy and Grace protested.

But they were not disappointed. There were not only letters from the boys, but several fat and interesting epistles from friends and relatives in Deepdale, including two from Paul and Dodo, Mollie's small and mischievous brother and sister.

"Let's drive away out of town where we can be by ourselves," Betty suggested, face radiant, fingers fairly aching to tear the precious missives from their envelopes. "Then we can stop the car and Mollie can read hers, too."

"You always have the right idea, Betty honey," said Mollie, with fond emphasis, as she swung the car at breakneck speed down the street and headed for the open country. "Now aren't you glad," she flung at Grace and Amy, "that we made you go back with us and take a chance?"

"Don't rub it in, Mollie dear," purred Grace, too happy at the prospect before them to contradict anything or anybody on earth. "We are deeply appreciative and inordinately grateful to you for your wonderful foresight and insistence."

"Is she calling me names?" cried Mollie threateningly. "For if she is, I should like to remark for the benefit of each and every one that I am still in possession of the wheel, and a swift and terrible doom shall overtake—"

"Rave on, rave on, Macbeth," chuckled Betty, adding with a whimsical smile and a quickened heart beat as she fingered the letter she had so carefully placed under the rest: "There's no use, Mollie dear—you can't start a rumpus now. It can't be done. We're all too good-natured."

"That's the way Frank talks after a particularly good meal," chuckled Mollie.

"And I never saw boys who were so absolutely crazy about hot biscuits," sighed Amy. "If you gave them enough hot biscuits, they didn't seem to know or care whether they had anything else or not."

"Yes, somebody was always stirring up biscuit dough when we were at Pine Island," agreed Grace, her eyes dreamy. "I think one of us should have invented a patent stirrer—just in self-defense!"

"Just the same, I'd wager anything," cried Betty, with a thrill in her voice and the hint of tears behind the brightness of her eyes, "that there isn't one of us who wouldn't be willing to make biscuits from morning till night if we only had the boys here to eat them."

"Oh, wouldn't we!" cried Amy hungrily. "I shouldn't care if I turned into a biscuit!"

They laughed at that, but the laugh was not scornful, for their hearts were very full and tender.

"Sha'n't we stop here?" Mollie asked, after they had ridden a long, long way in silence. "It's private enough—"

"Oh, yes, yes," the others interrupted her eagerly, and as Mollie guided the car over to the side of the road, Betty sprang the news she had been bursting to tell ever since they started.

"Girls," she cried, and quickly they turned to her, sensing something unusual in her tone, "I have a surprise for you."

"Yes?" they cried eagerly.

"It's about our Sergeant William Mullins Sanderson," she announced, her eyes sparkling.

"Yes?" they cried again, and Mollie added impatiently:

"Oh, Betty, don't keep us waiting. What about him?"

"Only," said Betty, speaking very slowly and distinctly, "that he's got the thing he wanted most in the world—besides his mother. This morning he received his overseas orders."

"Oh, Betty!" cried Mollie, her eyes big and round. "Isn't he simply wild about it?"

"He's delirious," said Betty simply, adding, with the ring of pride in her voice: "He seemed two inches taller when he told me about it. Oh, the spirit of our boys—the wonderful spirit of them! It can't take them long, it can't, when they once get started!"

"But Mrs. Sanderson," put in Amy gently. "How is she taking it?"

"I haven't seen her yet," said Betty, her face sobering a little. But it brightened again as she added with conviction: "I think we know enough about that little lady to be sure she'll take it standing up and be prouder than ever of her 'Willie boy.'"

"Of course she will," said Grace softly, her eyes following the red disc of the sun as it sank slowly in the west. "We're all awfully proud of them, but I don't think any of us can help wishing that it were all over instead of just beginning, and that the boys were coming home to us victorious."

"We shouldn't be human if we didn't feel that way," said Betty soberly. "But we haven't come to the joyful part, yet. Just now we've got to keep cheerful and hold on hard to our hope and faith in the future. We owe that to the boys, the boys who are fighting, perhaps dying for us, more than we owe it to ourselves.

"But now," she added, forcing a lighter tone, "we've got a big treat before us and we're not going to think of anything but just that. Our letters, girls—we've been forgetting them."

The girls started, looked surprised, then instantly responded to the challenge of her lighter tone.

"Goodness, it's you who made us forget them, Betty Nelson," cried Grace, squeezing the Little Captain's hand fondly, then falling to with a will on her own momentarily neglected mail. "Just see," she added wickedly, holding up two letters with the coveted foreign postmark before their envious eyes, "what an advantage it is to have a brother in the army as well as a—a—"

"Well, go ahead," Betty teased, while the others laughed delightedly at her flaming color. "What is that other thing you've got besides a brother, the mere mention of whose name makes you the color of a beet?—I should say," correcting herself with a demure little smile, "the color of a flaming sunset—"

"That would be more poetic," agreed Mollie soberly, while her eyes danced. "But either description would be correct."

"You geese," cried Grace, trying vainly to hide her flushed face behind the letter she had opened. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"She remindeth me of the graceful ostrich," chanted Mollie cruelly, "who hideth his head and thinks thereby—"

"Now I know you're calling me names," cried Grace, raising the flushed face and glaring threateningly at the back of the mischievous Mollie.

"Well, she at least said you were graceful," chuckled Betty, tearing open a letter from Deepdale and still reserving the best till the last. "Anyway," she added, "we have better things to do than to engage in useless controversy."

"I don't know what it's all about," said Mollie, settling herself luxuriously to enjoy her own small pile of letters. "But I'll take your word for it, Betty, just the same."

And while they read the dusk came down upon them softly like a mantle, and the setting sun sent ruddy rays to touch their young, bowed heads.

The last paragraph of Allen's letter Betty read and reread, finally through a mist of tears that blurred the words and ran them in together.

"It won't be long," he wrote, "before we fellows will receive the orders that we've all been crazy for—the orders that will take us to the front. And then, Betty, there's not a Hun that can stand before me. For I've a memory, little girl, that will make me carry on to victory—and you. Will you be waiting for me, Betty, when it's over? Will you want me then? For I'm coming to you, little girl. As surely as the sun rises every morning and sets again at night, I'm coming to you. Betty, dear, I'm loving you—"

And Betty, raising a transfigured, tremulous face, gazed straight into the heart of the setting sun.

"Yes, I'll be waiting," she whispered to herself. "Oh, Allen, come back to me—come back to me—soon—"

And so, in the midst of stirring scenes, with martial music always ringing in their ears, with pride in the past and courage in the future, we once more wave farewell to our Outdoor Girls.

THE END