"Yes," said Allen with a grimace, "if anybody'd started to patting me at that time, I'd have returned pat for pat—only mine wouldn't have been gentle. Two cents for your thoughts, Betty. You haven't said a word all the way."

"Goodness, has the price of thoughts gone up with everything else?" queried Mollie, snatching a candy from under Grace's very nose. "Nobody ever offered me more than a penny for mine."

"Probably they weren't worth it," said Roy, to be promptly subdued by a look from Mollie's black eyes. "As I was saying," he continued, hastily changing the subject. "I'd consider myself in luck if I'd rescued two beautiful damsels——"

"They'd be the lucky ones," interrupted Mollie, with a smile.

"From a burning building," he continued, undaunted. "It certainly was dramatic, Allen, old chap—we have to hand it to you."

"I felt anything but dramatic at the time," said Allen ruefully. "The funny part of it is that I've always had a secret longing to do something of the sort—just to get the sensation. That," he paused dramatically, "cured me!"

"I should think it would cure most anybody," said Mollie with a grimace. "Neither Betty or I are particularly light weights. I don't see how you managed it, Allen—in the heat and the smoke and everything."

"Managed it," scoffed Roy. "Why, it isn't every fellow has the chance to hold two beauteous maidens in his arms——"

"Still I might have picked out a more appropriate place," said Allen whimsically.

"Tell me something, Frank," said Grace, taking another piece of candy and looking her prettiest at him.

"Anything," he answered promptly.

"Under the same conditions, would you have rushed into a burning house—to save me?"

"Would I?" he replied with a fervor that made Grace jump and the rest laugh. "You just give me a chance; that's all. I'll show you!"

"Goodness!" exclaimed Betty, twinkling. "I'll be afraid to sleep with Grace any more. She's apt to set the place on fire just to see what happens."

"Good-bye, I'm going away from here," said Mollie, making a pretense of clambering out of the machine. "One fire is just about enough for me. Let me go, Roy Anderson—don't you dare to hold me."

"Couldn't do anything pleasanter," said Roy cheerfully, at which Grace held up her hands in pretended horror.

"Heavens, everybody's getting sentimental," she cried. "If we don't stop it, we'll just ruin everything, that's all. Look out for that dog, Frank!"

"That's another thing we almost ruined," grinned Frank, as the wheel just grazed the hind leg of the cur. "Dogs are the curse of tourists, anyway. If I had my way, they'd all be shot."

Amy screamed and clapped her hand to her ears.

"Frank, how can you say such things?" she cried, adding plaintively, "I never saw such people, anyway. You can't talk for five minutes without saying something about people being shot."

"But we were speaking of animals," said Frank politely.

"Same thing," murmured Mollie.

"Speak for yourself, please," he retorted amiably, swerving the car at a perilous angle about a turn in the road. "Say, this is pretty country along here, isn't it?"

They all agreed that it was, and for a few minutes sat in silent enjoyment of it.

While the Hostess House was in process of repair some friendly families living in the vicinity had opened their doors wide to the girls and the other visitors at the Hostess House. The fire had done a great deal of damage, but the house had been amply insured, and the work of rebuilding was proceeding as fast as possible. Meanwhile, the girls were going on with their work as usual, though eagerly looking forward to the time when they should be installed in their proper quarters again.

The fire had temporarily put the subject of Will and his mysterious doings out of their minds, but during the last few days their wonder and curiosity had returned.

To-day he had consented to accompany them, and during the early part of the ride had seemed in hilarious spirits. Now, for the last fifteen minutes or so, he had appeared gloomy and preoccupied, but as they neared the spot where they had decided to eat their lunch, his spirits seemed to revive somewhat, and he became talkative again.

"Say, I'm hungry," he announced, more like the old Will than he had been for weeks. "What are you girls going to give us, anyway?"

"Chicken," announced Betty, "and honey and biscuits, and peach cake and jelly, and hot coffee from the thermos bottle, some ham sandwiches and deviled eggs——"

"Stop her," pleaded Roy piteously. "Stop her, some one, before I forget myself and decamp with the hamper——"

"You'd be forgetting us too, if you tried it," said Frank grimly. "Do you suppose with three ravenous wolves at your back you'd have a chance of getting away with any of that kind of stuff?"

"Gee, it's awful the appetite camp life gives you," said Roy mournfully. "I wrote home the other day and told the folks that if I ate like a wolf before, I eat like a flock of 'em, now."

"Whoever heard of a flock of wolves?" asked Mollie scornfully. "You must have been thinking of geese."

"No," retorted Roy soberly. "I wasn't speaking of you."

"Strike one for our side," chuckled Allen, while the others laughed at Mollie's look of surprise. "That was a good one, Roy—right from the shoulder."

"Now I know I'm going home," said Mollie forlornly. "Everybody's agin me."

"I'm not," said Betty, putting an arm about her. "The more they try to down you, the more I love you."

"If that's the way you feel," put in Allen whimsically, "won't everybody please jump on me at once?"

"Yes, I always had a weakness for the under dog," Betty was beginning wickedly when Mollie drew sharply away from her, and the others began to laugh.

"Betty Nelson," said Mollie reproachfully, "I never expected it of you. Under dog, indeed——"

"Oh, I didn't mean you!" said Betty hurriedly, thereby increasing the general mirth.

"Oh, well, what does it matter, anyway?" said Frank philosophically, as he swung the car around a curve, and brought it to a standstill. "I won't mind being an under dog or anything else as long as I get my share of the eats. Don't you think this is rather a pretty spot to have lunch?"

"I know a better spot to put it, though," said Roy jocularly, as they sprang out upon the soft grass by the roadside. "And if I have my way it won't be long getting there."

Instinctively, Betty held out a hand to Allen, as he descended more slowly than the rest—she was very anxious about his "wabbliness."

Allen took the little hand eagerly, but it is doubtful if he gained much physical support from it.

"How are you feeling?" asked Betty as they followed the others up the grassy slope to a sort of ledge—just the kind of place for a picnic lunch. She did not look at him. Somehow, it was almost impossible to look at Allen, these days.

"Happy," he answered, in reply to her question. "Just being near you, Betty, makes me the happiest fellow on earth!"



CHAPTER XXII

MAKING GOOD

It was raining torrents outside, and the girls were seated in one of the big parlors of the Hostess House. As usual, they were knitting, and their tongues kept time to the rapid click, click, of their needles.

They were exceptionally thoughtful and, as Amy expressed it, "their mood matched the weather." The war was not going as well as every one had hoped. The dark cloud was growing darker and darker every day, and each morning paper seemed to bring more disquieting news than the one before.

"And it won't be long now," Mollie was saying, "before our boys are sent across. It's almost time for the second draft, and the camps will have to be emptied of the first troops. And when they're gone——" she bowed her head to hide the unbidden tears that were glistening in her eyes.

"Yes, it will be terrible," said Betty, trying hard to keep the telltale tremulousness from her voice—trying desperately to sound brave and resigned. "But we must remember that thousands of women and girls all over the United States are going through the same thing. And for the boys' sake, we must be cheerful."

"The boys themselves are cheerful—heaven bless them," cried Grace, in a rare burst of enthusiasm. "I never saw anything like their spirit!"

"Isn't it wonderful?" Mollie agreed, her eyes shining through her tears. "It makes you want to shout with pride in them, and cry at the same time."

"Yes," said Amy quietly, "and I don't think anybody who hasn't been close to military life, as we have been, can realize how great the American army will be. It's meeting the boys day after day, seeing them get more enthusiastic as the time comes near for them to face those terrible guns——"

"I feel as if I wanted to go down on my knees to every boy in uniform," cried Betty, gripping the arms of her chair till the knuckles showed white. "No matter how hard we try we can't make up to them for what they're giving up—and giving up so cheerfully. And they're so dear and appreciative and thankful for every little thing that we have done for them, it makes me want to cry.

"And have you noticed," she continued, while the girls stopped their work to watch her, "what happens if you ask them about their home folks? Their faces light up, and right away they begin to talk about 'mother.'

"'You know,' one of them said to me just a little while ago, 'when I first came to camp, I didn't exactly feel homesick, as I'd expected to; I just felt queer and uneasy and restless. For a couple of nights I couldn't sleep, just kept tossing and turning till reveille routed me out again. Then suddenly, one night, I found out what the matter was. I wasn't homesick; I was just missing my mother.'

"I smiled at him, trying my best not to cry, and said: 'Home is mother, isn't it?'

"Then the boy just turned away, and I knew it was because his eyes were misty and he was ashamed to let me see it, and when he looked at me again he was smiling a little wistfully.

"A few days after that he came up to me. 'You won't laugh, if I tell you something?' he asked. 'On my word of honor,' I answered him. 'Well,' he said, looking so dear and sheepish, I had all I could do to keep from hugging him, 'as soon as I found out what you said about home being mother, I just put the picture I had of her under my pillow, and honest, I've slept like a baby ever since.'"

The girls were all crying and Mollie impatiently shook a tear from the tip of her nose. "Betty, you never told us that before. If his mother could only know about it."

"She probably does," said Betty, wiping her eyes and taking up her knitting again. "Somehow, most mothers know those things by instinct."

"And to think boys like that," cried Mollie, knitting fast to keep time with her feelings, "to think boys like that have to go over to the other side, and be mowed down by the thousands. Oh, I can't believe it!"

"I guess we've all sort of closed our eyes to it, till now," said Grace, so unlike her usual self that she had completely forgotten to eat candy for fifteen minutes. "But we can't go on like that forever. When it comes right down to us and we lose somebody we care for—" her voice broke and the girls went on knitting faster than ever, fearing a general breakdown.

"We've just got to work so hard we can't think," said Mollie with decision, adding, a little hysterically: "It never used to be hard before."

"What, to keep from thinking?" asked Amy, while the other girls smiled a little and felt better.

"Who's that coming up the walk, Betty?" Grace asked, a moment later. "The glimpse I got looked like a uniform."

"It's Allen," Betty answered, waving to the splendid specimen of manhood who was coming up the porch two steps at a time. "He looks as if he had some good news for us. You let him in, will you, Amy? You're nearest the door."

So Amy, opening the door, admitted a six-foot cyclone, who swept her before him into the parlor, where she sank into a chair to get her breath.

"Well, what in the world?" asked Mollie, round eyes on his face, as he mopped his face and lowered himself into a seat.

"Talk about good luck," he began, beaming round upon them. "I guess the fellows were right when they said I was falling into it lately."

"Good news, Allen?" asked Betty, leaning forward eagerly. "I knew you had something wonderful to tell us the moment I saw you."

"Well, in the first place," said Allen, modestly putting himself last, "Frank has been promoted to the rank of corporal."

"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" they cried together, and thereafter arose a very babel of questions as to where, when and how the promotion had occurred, which Allen answered one after another with equal enthusiasm.

"Frank's taken hold and worked with all his heart," he finished, "and he simply got what's coming to him, that's all."

"But, Allen," Betty broke in, struck by a sudden thought, "you said something about your having run into good luck. Was it something that happened to you personally, or was it just the good luck of being the friend of a corporal?"

"Since I've been a corporal myself from the start," said Allen with dignity, "I don't see why——"

"Yes, yes, go on," said Mollie impatiently.

"Well," said Allen, throwing the news like a bomb into their midst, "I've been promoted to a sergeant."

"What?" the girls cried, hardly knowing whether to believe him or not. "Are you really in earnest?"

"You're not very complimentary," he grumbled, though his eyes twinkled. "You don't suppose I'd come here and tell you a thing like that if it weren't so, do you?"

Then arose a second babel, louder and more prolonged than the first, and it was a long time before they quieted down enough to talk coherently.

"You see," Allen explained, "there's a chance for promotion now that there never was before. New men are coming in by the hundreds, and those men have to have officers. There's really no end to the chances if you just stick to the big game and do your level best. You're sure to win something good in the end."

"And hasn't Roy been promoted?" asked Grace. "Hasn't he been 'on the job,' as you say?"

"You bet your life he has," Allen defended loyally. "It's just our luck that we happened to get it; that's all. His turn will come next, you take it from me."

For a few minutes no one spoke, and only the ticking of the clock, and the regular click, click of the knitting needles broke the deep stillness. Then Allen bethought him of something.

"Saw Will, too, on the way up," he said, and at the name the girls all put down their knitting and looked at him inquiringly. "He seemed to be immensely excited about something. Fact is, I don't think he would even have seen me if I hadn't gotten in his way and flagged him. Mark my words—that boy's got something big up his sleeve. I bet he's going to surprise us all some day."

"Did he—did he—tell you anything?" asked Grace. "Anything to make you think that?"

"No," he answered, adding with a sincerity that brought a light of unutterable gladness to Grace's eyes: "But I've met lots of fellows in my business, and have learned to size them up pretty well. And if there was ever a brainy, plucky, true-blue fellow in this world, his name is Will Ford!"



CHAPTER XXIII

JUST FRIENDS

"Here comes the sun," cried Betty, "the sun, the sun, the beautiful sun."

"Well, I should say it was just about time," said Grace, carefully arranging her hat before the mirror. "If it hadn't cleared up pretty soon, I'd have stopped hoping. Are the other girls nearly ready?"

"Oh, we've been ready and waiting for hours," came Mollie's voice, slightly bored, from the other room. "And we took our time, too, because we knew how long you are getting dressed——"

"Oh, is that so?" Grace was beginning, when Betty interrupted peaceably.

"Well, we're all ready now. In the words of the army—'let's go.'"

"Oh, it is lovely out!" cried Mollie, drawing in deep breaths of the invigorating air, as they stood on the steps looking down the street. "I feel like walking miles and miles and miles."

As the four girls walked down to the main gate of the cantonment, they nodded and smiled continually to the khaki-clad, respectfully- saluting boys they passed; for the fame of the girls at the Hostess House had spread all over the barracks, and the boys always looked forward to catching a smile or two or a merry word as they passed.

Many there were who had been sentimentally inclined, but the Deepdale boys had well nigh monopolized the girls from their home town and by their actions had warned off all would-be intruders almost as plainly as though they had put out a sign.

There were some hardy souls, however, who refused to recognize any prior claim, and these had caused much grumbling among the Deepdale boys.

"I wonder what will happen when we have to go across," Frank had said once. "I suppose then those chaps will think they have it all their own way."

And the bright faces of the girls had clouded so suddenly and they had looked so distressed that poor Frank never dared repeat the offense.

But stopping every few minutes to speak to some one you know, necessarily makes progress slow, and it was some time before the girls succeeded in reaching the gate and turning their steps toward the country.

"It doesn't seem possible that Thanksgiving can be so near," said Amy thoughtfully. "I never knew time to run away so."

"Yes, it makes me feel dizzy sometimes," said Mollie, with a little perplexed frown. "I feel as if I wanted to get hold of him by the forelock and hold him back. He's in altogether too much of a hurry."

"If we can only see that each one of the boys who can't go home for Thanksgiving gets a regular, old-fashioned home-cooked dinner," said Betty earnestly, "I'll feel as if we'd done some good in the world."

"Well, more than half the boys will be able to get home for it," said Grace, "and I'm sure we'll find enough good-hearted families to account for the rest."

"Yes, the people around here have certainly helped us more than we dared to hope," said Betty enthusiastically. "We've hardly found one so far who wasn't willing to open his house—and his heart, too, for that matter—to the soldier boys. I love them all for being so generous. It's done more than anything else to keep up the boys' spirits and send them away happy and healthy and confident."

"Where are we going first?" queried Mollie, for Betty had made out a list of the houses they were to canvass.

"The Shroths come first," she answered, consulting her list. "Then the Atwaters and the Clarks. After that we'll just go up one street and down the other till supper time."

"Sounds simple," said Amy plaintively, "but, oh, our poor feet!"

"We have walked a good deal, lately," laughed Betty. "But it's nothing to what we have done. Champion hikers like us shouldn't complain about ordinary walking. Here we are at the Shroths. Now look your prettiest and smile your sweetest for the sake of the soldier boys!"

Mrs. Shroth, a sweet-faced, elderly woman, opened the door to them herself and smilingly ushered them into the handsome library.

"I saw you coming, my dears," she said, settling down comfortably in an enveloping armchair, "and I'm almost sure I know what you have come to ask me. And you needn't even ask," she added, raising her hand as Betty started to speak, "for the request was granted two weeks ago. My whole house is at your disposal—to do with as you please."

"Oh, you're lovely," Betty cried impulsively, and Mrs. Shroth gently covered the eager young hand on the chair arm with her own, smiling down into the flushed face.

"The admiration is mutual," she said, and then Betty's heart went out to her entirely. "I've watched you girls for a long time, and the work you've done for the boys has been simply splendid. I've tried to help all I could—-"

"You have," broke in Mollie enthusiastically. "And we've been so grateful to you."

"And I've been grateful to you," Mrs. Shroth added, in her sweet voice, "for showing me how best I could serve the boys and my country. Now, how many do you think I could accommodate for Thanksgiving dinner—or rather, how many would you like me to accommodate?"

Betty was a little at a loss.

"Why, I hardly know," she said, hesitating. "We didn't expect you to take in more than two, perhaps three at the outside——"

"Oh, nonsense," said Mrs. Shroth, brushing the suggestion aside. "Two or three boys would be lost in this big house, even counting all my relatives who usually spend Thanksgiving day with me. No, I can take half a dozen, at least."

The girls looked at her a moment, delighted, but incredulous. Then they told Mrs. Shroth what they thought of such generosity until she found herself blushing with pleasure.

"It's such a little thing," she said, as she stood on the porch to say good-bye to them, "that I feel almost guilty to take thanks for it. Good luck." The girls went on down the street with singing hearts and a warm sense of friendliness and love for all their fellow beings.

They found the same spirit in every house they visited, and when they at last started for home after walking "miles and miles" they were too happy to feel tired.

"Oh, every one's so kind and dear and anxious to help," cried Mollie, skipping a little in her delight, "that your heart just feels too big to stay inside. Seems as if it ought to come out in the open where everybody can see how hard it's beating."

"Well, I have heard of people wearing their hearts on their sleeves," said Betty, twinkling. "But I've never tried it myself."

"It's wonderful," said Amy softly, "what a comfortable, warm feeling it gives you to find people—some of them you never knew before—who are really working side by side with you for the same thing, ready to hold out a helping hand when you need it."

"Yes," agreed Betty, her eyes fixed dreamily on the horizon, "it makes you feel as if there weren't any strangers in the world, as if we were all just friends, working for the common good of everybody."

"Betty, how pretty," cried Grace, and there was a thrill in her voice as she repeated softly; "all just friends, working for the common good of everybody."

"I'll never forget one thing that happened to me," said Amy, and they looked at her lovingly. Amy was such a dear—but then everybody was that to-night! "It was only a little thing, and yet it made me think."

"Then it couldn't have been very little," Mollie, the irrepressible, murmured.

"You know," Amy went on, so deep in her own thoughts, she scarcely noticed the interruption, "I never did talk much—I always felt as if people were cold and unfriendly—and so kept to myself, except for my really good friends, of course. Then, one morning, I saw that it was all my own fault.

"I just happened to be walking along the street, not noticing anybody particularly, when an old woman dropped her nickel car fare and it rolled out into the middle of the street. I ran after it and gave it back to her, and she smiled at me. Somehow, that smile changed everything for me."

"How, dear?" asked Betty, putting a sympathetic arm about her.

"Why," said Amy, blushing in her enthusiasm, "it just made me feel as if everybody was ready to smile if you only gave them half a chance. And I've found out it was true," she finished decidedly. "Because I've tried it ever so many times since, and it's never once failed!"

"Yes," concluded Mollie. "I guess everybody's just plain nice and human, after all!"



CHAPTER XXIV

CAPTIVE AND CAPTORS

"Girls," Betty clutched Mollie by the arm and spoke in a tense undertone, "isn't that the spy?"

The girls gasped, looked, and set off on a dead run. The spy's back was to them. He seemed to be waiting for somebody and he did not see the girls till they were almost upon him.

Then, with an exclamation, he dodged around the corner of the house and commenced to run like a deer.

"Amy!" gasped Betty, as they pursued, fleet of foot, "you go to the camp for help! I'll try to cut him off!"

With the strategy of a general, Betty dodged a couple of dirt piles— it was a row of small houses, in process of construction near the camp—slipped across between two of the houses and did actually succeed in cutting the spy off.

She caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he dodged into a doorway with the evident intention of hiding till they got tired of the hunt. Also, it was certain he had not seen Betty and had no idea that she had seen him.

With wildly beating heart, but no thought of turning back, the Little Captain picked up a big piece of wood that could serve excellently as a weapon and ran for the doorway through which the spy had disappeared.

Cautiously she opened the door, and the next moment thought her heart would stop beating altogether as she took in the situation. The man was fumbling desperately with the knob of the inside door. Evidently it was locked. He had fallen into a trap!

Breathlessly Betty closed the door and leaned her full weight upon it. If the girls would only come! They might together manage to hold it. But alone——

"Betty, Betty, where are you?" cried a voice close at hand and the Little Captain gave a gasp of dismay. As long as the man had not known he was trapped, there might be a chance that he would remain quiet, hoping they would pass without thinking to look into the house. But now! Some one was pushing against the other side of the door. He was trying to get out!

"Hurry!" she cried agonizedly as Mollie and Grace ran up to her. "Put your weight against the door—quick."

So used were they to obeying her without question that they threw their full weight upon the door, bracing and holding with all their might.

"He's in there," gasped Betty. "I've sent Amy for help. If we can hold on—just a few minutes——"

The man was hurling himself against the door with all the force of desperation, but the girls had not spent most of their life in the open for nothing. They held on gallantly, though in their hearts they knew that if help were very long in coming, there could be but one answer. They were three against one, it is true, but then they were girls and he was a man, and a desperate man.

"Oh, why does it take her so long?" Grace cried after one particularly vigorous lunge which it had taken all their combined strength to withstand. "I don't think we can keep this up much longer——"

"Hush," gasped Betty, "I thought I heard voices."

"Oh, I hope you did!"

They listened breathlessly for a moment—then the wonderful truth dawned. Help was coming, and coming swiftly! There was no sound, save the regular thud-thud of running feet, but the most beautiful music in the world would have had no charms in comparison with that rhythmic sound.

Their prisoner must have heard it too, for he redoubled his efforts to escape and they had to turn all of their attention to the holding of the door.

"If they should come too late!" gasped Mollie.

"Don't talk," hissed Betty, through clenched teeth. "We've got to hold him."

And they did!

A moment later several guards, headed by a man not in uniform, came in sight around the corner of the building and as Will afterward expressed it "the game was all over but the shouting."

For it was Will who headed the relief party and took charge of the capture. And so excited were the girls, that they forgot even to wonder until it was all over.

Adolph Hensler was not easy to handle, even after he found himself looking into the muzzles of two loaded revolvers. Even then he tried to escape and the guard was forced to shoot a couple of bullets over his head before he was scared into submission.

The girls walked home behind captive and captors, too breathless and excited even to think. They had not gone far before they met Amy coming toward them, trembling all over from fatigue and excitement.

"They got him, didn't they?" she asked, linking her arm through Betty's and biting her lip to keep it steady. "I was so afraid they would be too late."

"So were we," said Grace, examining a big black and blue bruise on her arm. "We could have held out just about a minute longer."

"How did you do it, Amy?" cried Mollie. "Did you have to go all the way back to camp to find help?"

"No, I met it coming," she answered.

They stared at her incredulously.

"I was about half way to camp," she explained, "when I saw Will and the three soldiers coming toward me. When I had managed to gasp out what I'd come for they didn't say a word—just put on full speed and ran."

"Mighty lucky for us they did," said Mollie, but Betty interrupted eagerly.

"Doesn't it seem strange to you," she said, "that an armed guard should be coming in this direction just when we needed them? And that Will should be at the head of them?"

"Why, Betty, what do you mean?" Mollie was beginning when Grace interrupted.

"Oh, do you think it can be true?" she cried, seeing Betty's meaning and clinging to it desperately. "Oh, Betty, Betty, if it only is!"

"What are you talking about?" cried Mollie impatiently. "Can what be what?"

"Let's wait," said Betty, quickening her pace, "and let Will tell the story!"



CHAPTER XXV

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED

After dinner in the living-room of the Hostess House, a snapping, dancing, crackling fire in the grate, and the girls gathered in an expectant semicircle about it.

They were nervous, too, for every once in a while one of them would get up, look out the window, throw an extra log upon the fire and sit down again with a "why-don't-they-come?" look of impatience upon her face.

A ring at the door bell!

"I'll answer it," cried Betty, jumping up and nearly overturning a chair in her eagerness. When she returned a couple of minutes later, her face held a look of unutterable disgust.

"Only one of the guests," she said, as the girls looked up eagerly. "I was sure that must be the boys."

"They're terribly late," grumbled Mollie, kicking an overturned edge of the rug into place, as if even that small vent to her feelings was a relief. "They'll be all talked out before they get here."

Another ring at the door bell!

This time there was no mistake. A chorus of excited voices greeted Betty as she opened the door for them and a moment later the boys burst into the living-room, fairly exhaling importance. The girls welcomed them eagerly and drew up more chairs before the fire.

"Gee, but we've had some time," cried Allen, fairly panting from exertion and excitement. "If you girls were heroines before, you're more than ever so, now."

"But where's Will?" asked Grace, with that old, anxious look. "I thought he was coming with you."

"He is," Frank answered her. "But he was summoned to a very important conference with the colonel——"

"The colonel!" they cried incredulously, while Grace stamped her foot with impatience.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Just that," he answered, enjoying their mystification too much to enlighten them at once. "When he received the order he told us fellows to come on over and he'd join us as soon as he could break away."

"Oh, Allen, please tell me what it all means." Grace was fairly crying with excitement and eagerness. "Please don't keep me waiting any longer!"

"I'm sorry, Grace—I didn't think," said Allen, in quick compunction. "It means," he added, with a ring of pride in his voice, "that Will is what we always believed him to be—one of the finest fellows that ever lived. I'm proud to be called his friend!"

"Oh, Allen!" Grace felt blindly for a handkerchief and Betty slipped it into her hand. "Oh, Allen,——"

"But what did he do?" demanded Mollie impatiently. "You haven't gotten to the point yet."

"Well," Allen continued, while Betty put a sympathetic arm about her friend and snuggled close, "all the time we were wondering down in our hearts why Will didn't enlist—although we never doubted he had good reasons," he added hastily, "he was really working harder, spending more time and energy for the government than we ever thought of spending. There's one important thing we forgot—that Will was a secret service man!"

"Oh!" cried Betty, her eyes gleaming in the firelight, "now, I know I guessed right!"

"What did you guess?" asked Allen, remembering to marvel, even in that moment of excitement, how very becoming firelight was to Betty! "Out with it."

"Why," said Betty, leaning forward eagerly, "after Amy told us that she had met Will and the soldiers half way to the spot where we found the spy, I seemed to see the whole thing as plainly as if some one had told it to me.

"I remembered Will's special interest in the spy the first time we met Adolph Hensler on Pine Island—then how, soon after we saw him here again, Will wrote Grace that he was coming on. That would seem as though he were hot on his trail—"

"He was," said Allen, while the others hung on every word.

"Well, the rest is simple," said Betty. "I suppose that Will kept on shadowing him till he got what he wanted. He was on his way to capture the spy, while we were hanging on to the door, praying for help. Oh, it all fits together like parts of a puzzle!"

"You're a wonder, Betty!" said Allen, while the others drew a deep breath, trying to take it all in. "But there was one little bit, or rather, I should say, big bit, of cleverness on Will's part that neither you nor anybody else could guess at. You remember the code letter we picked up that night on Pine Island?"

"Yes," they cried eagerly.

"Well, Will had the code deciphered and found out who wrote the document. It proved, by the way, that Adolph Hensler is one of the most dangerous and most wanted German spies in this country."

"And what else?" cried Mollie, who could never wait for the end of a story.

"The clever part of it," Allen continued, leaning forward, very handsome and eager in the firelight, "was Will's copying of the handwriting on the envelope."

"Sure," chuckled Roy. "I told him I wouldn't be surprised to see him start a life of crime any time now."

"Surely no experienced forger could have done it better," Allen agreed whimsically, while the girls waited with unconcealed impatience. "Anyway, he wrote a short note—a decoy—to Adolph in this handwriting, requesting an interview at the very spot where you girls came upon him."

"Oh!" cried Betty, in dismay. "Then it would have been better if we'd left him alone. We took a chance of spoiling all Will's well-laid plans."

"How could it have been better?" asked Allen. "Will started out to capture him and found you girls had beat him to it, that's all."

"Yes and they might have had a good deal more trouble rounding him up than you did," put in Frank. "From what Will tells us, you girls sure did do a neat job."

The girls flushed with pleasure, but Mollie, being truthful to a fault, put an arm about Betty and told where most of the credit was actually due.

"Why, it was Betty who thought of cutting him off," she said, while Betty vainly tried to stop her. "No, I'm going to tell the truth! And it was Betty that really captured him. She saw him go in the door, followed him, and was holding on for dear life when we came upon her."

"Yes, and how long would I have been able to hold on, I'd like to know," protested the Little Captain vigorously, "if you girls hadn't come along just then. No, sir, if there's any credit at all, it's got to be divided equally among us!"

"You'll be surprised to see how much credit everybody's giving you," chuckled Roy. "When you make your next debut into society, I wouldn't be surprised if they greeted you with brass bands."

"Goodness, I wish they would," cried Mollie eagerly. "For the first time in my life, I'd have a chance to feel like a regular soldier!"

"But Will is the real hero," said Betty quietly. "To go on working for your county, taking a chance on having people think things of you that you don't deserve, that sort of thing is the real heroism."

"And I'm so glad and happy," added Grace, who had been seeing happy visions in the firelight, "to think that all his friends had faith in him when he most needed it."

"You bet we did," said Allen heartily. "There wasn't one of us who doubted him for a minute."

"I wonder when he'll get here," said Amy, rising slowly and strolling over to the window. "I hope the colonel lets him out before twelve o'clock."

"Oh, he'll be here almost any minute now," said Allen reassuringly. "Meanwhile, suppose you play something for us, Betty—something soft and sweet to match the firelight—and you," this last so softly that none but Betty heard.

Smiling a little, Betty rose and walked over to the piano. Allen followed her.

"What shall I play?" she asked, looking up at him with a sweet seriousness, that made him want desperately to gather her in his arms and tell her—oh, so many things! Instead, he said:

"Play 'Keep the Home Fires Burning.' It's the most appropriate thing to-night. And Betty, sing it—sing it—to me——"

"If I can," she murmured. "You know what happened when I tried to sing it before—and it's apt to be harder to-night."

"Try, anyway," he urged; and so she began, in the sweetest voice in the world, or so Allen thought, to sing one of the most beautiful songs ever composed.

And how she sang it! Before she had half finished it, the girls were feeling for their handkerchiefs and the boys were staring hard into the fire.

She sang it again—more softly than before, and when the last sweet note had died away, there was not a dry eye in the room.

"Betty, oh, Betty!" cried Allen, leaning across the piano toward her, thrilling her with the new earnestness in his voice, "will you keep the home fires burning for me—so that when I come back—Betty, when I come back——"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and held out a trembling hand to him.

"There will always be one—waiting for you," she whispered softly.

"Hello, folks!"

They turned suddenly and found Will standing in the doorway. Then, such a welcome as they gave him! It made up to him for all these months when he had seemed to stand on the outside, looking in.

"Come over to the fire and tell us all about it," Betty commanded. "Allen told us something, but we want to know the whole story—every little bit of a detail."

Will fairly beamed and entered into the story with the greatest enthusiasm.

"I really didn't do anything much," he finished modestly. "And at the end it was you girls that did all the work. I was just an 'also ran.'"

"But, isn't there something you left out?" drawled Frank, pretending to yawn and gazing into the fire. "It seems to me——"

"Gee," said Will, surprised at himself, "if I didn't really forget the most important part——"

"Now what are you talking about?" cried Mollie, while the girls pricked up their ears and began to scent a new mystery. "What did you forget?"

"Well," said Will, his eyes twinkling, and speaking with exasperating slowness, "do you happen to remember an eventful night on Pine Island, when Roy went to sleep——"

"Aw, cut it out," grumbled Roy. "I guess I'll never be able to live that down."

"Well, what about it?" cried Betty, at the limit of her patience, while the other girls looked threatening. "Please, Will——"

"Do you happen to remember," drawled Will, "that on that same night you lost some jewelry?"

"Oh, you found it!" they cried, fixing him with four pairs of bright, incredulous eyes. "Will, where is it?"

"Some of it's here," he went on, pulling a small bag from his pocket and opening it carefully while they crowded around him, fairly smothering him in their eagerness, "and the rest of it's in the pawn shop. We found the tickets on him, though—"

"My watch!"

"My necklace!"

"My lavallire!"

"My pearl brooch!"

These and other exclamations like them made such a babel of sound that the boys clapped their hands over their ears and looked at one another in comic dismay. This lasted so long that the boys had to pick up their caps and start for the door, before the girls consented to notice them.

"Where are you going?" asked Betty, while the other three stopped talking long enough to look surprised.

"We didn't think you'd miss us," said Roy plaintively. "So we were going away from here—that's all."

"Now, who's a flock of geese, I'd like to know," laughed Betty, as they coaxed their neglected swains back to the fire. "We couldn't very well help being excited, could we?"

"And to think," said Grace, beaming, "that we not only helped to catch a wanted spy, but helped to recover our own jewelry at the same time!"

"No wonder we had to pat ourselves on the back," chuckled Mollie, "Just wait till we tell the folks at home about it."

"Pretty good day's work," Roy admitted indulgently. "Couldn't have done much better myself."

They fell silent after that, each one busy with his own thoughts, each one seeing, in the fantastic, ever-changing heart of the fire, a little of his or her own future. And they were very happy.

Suddenly Grace broke the silence.

"And now," she said, glancing with love and pride at Will, who smiled fondly back at her, "what do you expect to do, dear?"

"Enlist," cried Will, jumping to his feet. "Thank heaven I can do it now with a clear conscience. I'm going to get into the big game quick and help give Fritz some of his own medicine. Gee, fellows, are we going to do it—are we?"

"I should smile!" they cried, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. "All we want is the chance!"

Quick as a flash Betty ran to the piano and began to play the "Star- Spangled Banner." Instantly the others were on their feet and singing with all the pent-up fervor of the last six months, emotions almost too big to master finding expression in the stirring melody.

"And we're all in it together," cried Betty, eyes bright and cheeks flaming, "for our dear country—for America!"

And, at the greatest moment of their lives, fired by patriotism, confident of victory, we once more, slowly, reluctantly, with many backward glances, take leave of our Outdoor Girls.

THE END