He stirred and raised up on one elbow to look about him.

There were two other cots in the room, arranged neatly with folded blankets. A box in between held a few simple toilet articles, a tin basin and a bucket of water. He eyed them greedily. When had he had a good wash. What luxury!

He dropped back on the cot and all at once became aware that there were strange sounds in the air above the building in which he lay, strange and deep, yet regular and with a certain booming monotony as if they had been going on a long time, and he had been too preoccupied to take notice of them. A queer frenzy seized his heart. This, then, was the sound of battle in the distance! He was here at the front at last! And that was the sound of enemy shells! How strange it seemed! How it gripped the soul with the audacity of it all! How terrible, and yet how exciting to be here at last! And yet he had an unready feeling. Something was still undone to prepare him for this ordeal. It was his subconscious self that was crying out for God. His material self had sensed the doughnuts that were frying so near to him, and he looked up eagerly to welcome whoever was coming tiptoing in to see if he was awake, with a nice hot plate of them for him to eat!

He swung to a sitting posture, and received them and the cup of hot chocolate that accompanied them with eagerness, like a little child whose mother had promised them if he would be good. Strange how easy and natural it was to fall into the ways of this gracious household. Would one call it that? It seemed so like a home!

While he was eating, his buddy slipped in smiling excitedly:

"Great news, Cammie! We've got a new captain! And, oh boy! He's a peach! He sat on our louie first off! You oughtta have seen poor old Wainwright's face when he shut him up at the headquarters. Boy, you'd a croaked! It was rich!"

Cameron finished the last precious bite of his third hot doughnut with a gulp of joy:

"What's become of Wurtz?" he asked anxiously.

"Canned, I guess," hazarded the private. "I did hear they took him to a sanitarium, nervous breakdown, they said. I'll tell the world he'd have had one for fair if he'd stayed with this outfit much longer. I only wish they'd have taken his little pet along with him. This is no place for little Harold and he'll find it out now he's got a real captain. Good-night! How d'you 'spose he ever got his commission, anyway? Well, how are you, old top? Feelin' better? I knew they'd fix you up here. They're reg'ler guys! Well, I guess we better hit the hay. Come on, I'll show you where your billet is. I looked out for a place with a good water-tight roof. What d'ye think of the orchestra Jerry is playing out there on the front? Some noise, eh, what? Say, this little old hut is some good place to tie up to, eh, pard! I've seen 'em before, that's how I knew."

During the days that followed Cameron spent most of his leisure time in the Salvation Army Hut.

He did not hover around the victrola as he would probably have done several months before, nor yet often join his voice in the ragtime song that was almost continuous at the piano, regardless of nearby shells, and usually accompanied by another tune on the victrola. He did not hover around the cooks and seek to make himself needful to them there, placing himself at the seat of supplies and handy when he was hungry—as did many. He sat at one of the far tables, often writing letters or reading his little book, or more often looking off into space, seeing those last days at camp, and the faces of his mother and Ruth.

There was more than one reason why he spent much of his time here. The hut was not frequented much by officers, although they did come sometimes, and were always welcomed, but never deferred to. Wainwright would not be likely to be about and it was always a relief to feel free from the presence of his enemy. But gradually a third reason came to play a prominent part in bringing him here, and that was the atmosphere. He somehow felt as if he were among real people who were living life earnestly, as if the present were not all there was.

There came a day when they were to move on up to the actual front. Cameron wrote letters, such as he had not dared to write before, for he had found out that these women could get them to his people in case anything should happen to him, and so he left a little letter for Ruth and one for his mother, and asked the woman with the gray eyes to get them back home somehow.

There was not much of moment in the letters. Even thus he dared not speak his heart for the iron of Wainwright's poison had entered into his soul. He had begun to think that perhaps, in spite of all her friendliness, Ruth really belonged to another world, not his world. Yet just her friendliness meant much to him in his great straight of loneliness. He would take that much of her, at least, even if it could never be more. He would leave a last word for her. If behind his written words there was breaking heart and tender love, she would never dream it. If his soul was really taking another farewell of her, what harm, since he said no sad word. Yet it did him good to write these letters and feel a reasonable assurance that they would sometime reach their destination.

There was a meeting held that night in the hut. He had never happened to attend one before, although he had heard the boys say they enjoyed them. One of his comrades asked him to stay, and a quick glance told him the fellow needed him, had chosen him for moral support.

So Cameron sat in a shadowy corner of the crowded room, and listened to the singing, wild and strong, and with no hint of coming battle in its full rolling lilt. He noted with satisfaction how the "Long, Long Trail," and "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" gradually gave place to "Tell Mother I'll Be There," and "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder," growing strong and full and solemn in the grand old melody of "Abide With Me." There were fellows there who but a few hours before had been shooting crap, whose lips had been loud with cheerful curses. Now they sat and sang with all their hearts, the heartiest of the lot. It was a curious psychological study to watch them. Some of them were just as keen now on the religious side of their natures as they had been with their sport or their curses. Theirs were primitive natures, easily wrought upon by the atmosphere of the moment, easily impressed by the solemnity of the hour, nearer, perhaps, to stopping to think about God and eternity than ever before in their lives. But there were also others here, thoughtful fellows who were strong and brave, who had done their duty and borne their hardships with the best, yet whose faces now were solemn with earnestness, to whom this meeting meant a last sacrament before they passed to meet their test. Cameron felt his heart in perfect sympathy with the gathering, and when the singing stopped for a few minutes and the clear voice of a young girl began to pray, he bowed his head with a smart of tears in his eyes. She was a girl who had just arrived that day, and she reminded him of Ruth. She had pansy-blue eyes and long gold ripples in her abundant hair. It soothed him like a gentle hand on his heart to hear her speak those words of prayer to God, praying for them all as if they were her own brothers, praying as if she understood just how they felt this night before they went on their way. She was so young and gently cared for, this girl with her plain soldier's uniform, and her fearlessness, praying as composedly out there under fire as if she trusted perfectly that her heavenly Father had control of everything and would do the best for them all. What a wonderful girl! Or, no—was it perhaps a wonderful trust? Stay, was it not perhaps a wonderful heavenly Father? And she had found Him? Perhaps she could tell him the way and how he had missed it in his search!

With this thought in his mind he lingered as the most of the rest passed out, and turning he noticed that the man who had come with him lingered also, and edged up to the front where the lassie stood talking with a group of men.

Then one of the group spoke up boldly:

"Say, Cap," he addressed her almost reverently, as if he had called her some queenly name instead of captain, "say, Cap, I want to ask you a question. Some of those fellows that preached to us have been telling us that if we go over there, and don't come back it'll be all right with us, just because we died fighting for liberty. But we don't believe that dope. Why—d'ye mean to tell me, Cap, that if a fellow has been rotten all his life he gets saved just because he happened to get shot in a battle? Why some of us didn't even come over here to fight because we wanted to; we had to, we were drafted. Do you mean to tell me that makes it all right over here? I can't see that at all. And we want to know the truth. You dope it out for us, Cap."

The young captain lassie slowly shook her head:

"No, just dying doesn't save you, son." There was a note of tenderness in that "son" as those Salvation Army lassies spoke it, that put them infinitely above the common young girl, as if some angelic touch had set them apart for their holy ministry. It was as if God were using their lips and eyes and spirits to speak to these, his children, in their trying hour.

"You see, it's this way. Everybody has sinned, and the penalty of sin is death. You all know that?"

Her eyes searched their faces, and appealed to the truth hidden in the depths of their souls. They nodded, those boys who were going out soon to face death. They were willing to tell her that they acknowledged their sins. They did not mind if they said it before each other. They meant it now. Yes, they were sinners and it was because they knew they were that they wanted to know what chances they stood in the other world.

"But God loved us all so much that He wanted to make a way for us to escape the punishment," went on the sweet steady voice, seeming to bring the very love of the Father down into their midst with its forceful, convincing tone. "And so He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to take our place and die on the Cross in our stead. Whoever is willing to accept His atonement may be saved. And it's all up to us whether we will take it or not. It isn't anything we can do or be. It is just taking Jesus as our Saviour, believing in Him, and taking Him at His word."

Cameron lingered and knelt with the rest when she prayed again for them, and in his own heart he echoed the prayer of acceptance that others were putting up. As he went out into the black night, and later, on the silent march through the dark, he was turning it over in his mind. It seemed to him the simplest, the most sensible explanation of the plan of Salvation he had ever heard. He wondered if the minister at home knew all this and had meant it when he tried to explain. But no, that minister had not tried to explain, he had told him he would grow into it, and here he was perhaps almost at the end and he had not grown into it yet. That young girl to-night had said it took only an instant to settle the whole thing, and she looked as if her soul was resting on it. Why could he not get peace? Why could he not find God?

Then out of the dark and into his thoughts came a curse and a sneer and a curt rebuke from Wainwright, and all his holy and beautiful thoughts fled! He longed to lunge out of the dark and spring upon that fat, flabby lieutenant, and throttle him. So, in bitterness of spirit he marched out to face the foe.



XVIII

When Ruth Macdonald got back from camp she found herself utterly dissatisfied with her old life. The girls in her social set were full of war plans. They had one and all enlisted in every activity that was going. Each one appeared in some pretty and appropriate uniform, and took the new regime with as much eagerness and enthusiasm as ever she had put into dancing and dressing.

Not that they had given up either of those employments. Oh, dear no! When they were not busy getting up little dances for the poor dear soldier boys from the nearby camps, they were learning new solo steps wherewith to entertain those soldier boys when their turn came to go to camp and keep up the continuous performance that seemed to be necessary to the cheering of a good soldier. And as for dressing, no one need ever suggest again a uniform for women as the solution of the high cost of dressing. The number of dainty devices of gold braid and red stars and silver tassels that those same staid uniforms developed made plain forever that the woman who chooses can make even a uniform distinctive and striking and altogether costly. In short they went into the war with the same superficial flightiness formerly employed in the social realms. They went dashing here and there in their high-power cars on solemn errands, with all the nonchalance of their ignorance and youth, till one, knowing some of them well, trembled for the errand if it were important. And many of them were really useful, which only goes to prove that a tremendous amount of unsuspected power is wasted every year and that unskilled labor often accomplishes almost as much as skilled. Some of them secured positions in the Navy Yard, or in other public offices, where they were thrown delightfully into intimacies with officers, and were able to step over the conventionalities of their own social positions into wildly exciting Bohemian adventures under the popular guise of patriotism, without a rebuke from their elders. There was not a dull hour in the little town. The young men of their social set might all be gone to war, but there were others, and the whirl of life went on gaily for the thoughtless butterflies, who danced and knitted and drove motor cars, and made bandages and just rejoiced to walk the streets knitting on the Sabbath day, a gay cretonne knitting bag on arm, and knitting needles plying industriously as if the world would go naked if they did not work every minute. Just a horde of rebellious young creatures, who at heart enjoyed the unwonted privilege of breaking the Sabbath and shocking a few fanatics, far more than they really cared to knit. But nobody had time to pry into the quality of such patriotism. There were too many other people doing the same thing, and so it passed everywhere for the real thing, and the world whirled on and tried to be gay to cover its deep heartache and stricken horror over the sacrifice of its sons.

But Ruth, although she bravely tried for several weeks, could not throw herself into such things. She felt that they were only superficial. There might be a moiety of good in all these things, but they were not the real big things of life; not the ways in which the vital help could be given, and she longed with her whole soul to get in on it somewhere.

The first Sabbath after her return from camp she happened into a bit of work which while it was in no way connected with war work, still helped to interest her deeply and keep her thinking along the lines that had been started while she was with John Cameron.

A quiet, shy, plain little woman, an old member of the church and noted for good work, came hurrying down the aisle after the morning service and implored a young girl in the pew just in front of Ruth to help her that afternoon in an Italian Sunday school she was conducting in a small settlement about a mile and a half from Bryne Haven:

"It's only to play the hymns, Miss Emily," she said. "Carrie Wayne has to go to a funeral. She always plays for me. I wouldn't ask you if I could play the least mite myself, but I can't. And the singing won't go at all without someone to play the piano."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Beck, but I really can't!" pleaded Miss Emily quickly. "I promised to help out in the canteen work this afternoon. You know the troop trains are coming through, and Mrs. Martin wanted me to take her place all the afternoon."

Mrs. Beck's face expressed dismay. She gave a hasty glance around the rapidly emptying church.

"Oh, dear, I don't know what I'll do!" she said.

"Oh, let them do without singing for once," suggested the carefree Emily. "Everybody ought to learn to do without something in war time. We conserve sugar and flour, let the Italians conserve singing!" and with a laugh at her own brightness she hurried away.

Ruth reached forward and touched the troubled little missionary on the arm:

"Would I do?" she asked. "I never played hymns much, but I could try."

"Oh! Would you?" A flood of relief went over the woman's face, and Ruth was instantly glad she had offered. She took Mrs. Beck down to the settlement in her little runabout, and the afternoon's experience opened a new world to her. It was the first time she had ever come in contact with the really poor and lowly of the earth, and she proved herself a true child of God in that she did not shrink from them because many of them were dirty and poorly clad. Before the first afternoon was over she had one baby in her arms and three others hanging about her chair with adoring glances. They could not talk in her language, but they stared into her beautiful face with their great dark eyes, and spoke queer unintelligible words to one another about her. The whole little company were delighted with the new "pretty lady" who had come among them. They openly examined her simple lovely frock and hat and touched with shy furtive fingers the blue ribbon that floated over the bench from her girdle. Mrs. Beck was in the seventh heaven and begged her to come again, and Ruth, equally charmed, promised to go every Sunday. For it appeared that the wayward pianist was very irregular and had to be constantly coaxed.

Ruth entered into the work with zest. She took the children's class which formerly had been with the older ones, and gathering them about her told them Bible stories till their young eyes bulged with wonder and their little hearts almost burst with love of her. Love God? Of course they would. Try to please Jesus? Certainly, if "Mrs. Ruth," as they called her, said they should. They adored her.

She fell into the habit of going down during the week and slipping into their homes with a big basket of bright flowers from her home garden which she distributed to young and old. Even the men, when they happened to be home from work, wanted the flowers, and touched them with eager reverence. Somehow the little community of people so different from herself filled her thoughts more and more. She began to be troubled that some of the men drank and beat their wives and little children in consequence. She set herself to devise ways to keep them from it. She scraped acquaintance with one or two of the older boys in her own church and enlisted them to help her, and bought a moving picture machine which she took to the settlement. She spent hours attending moving picture shows that she might find the right films for their use. Fortunately she had money enough for all her schemes, and no one to hinder her good work, although Aunt Rhoda did object strenuously at first on the ground that she might "catch something." But Ruth only smiled and said: "That's just what I'm out for, Auntie, dear! I want to catch them all, and try to make them live better lives. Other people are going to France. I haven't got a chance to go yet, but while I stay here I must do something. I can't be an idler."

Aunt Rhoda looked at her quizzically. She wondered if Ruth was worried about one of her men friends—and which one?

"If you'd only take up some nice work for the Government, dear, such as the other girls are doing!" she sighed, "work that would bring you into contact with nice people! You always have to do something queer. I'm sure I don't know where you got your low tendencies!"

But Ruth would be off before more could be said. This was an old topic of Aunt Rhoda's and had been most fully discussed during the young years of Ruth's life, so that she did not care to enter into it further.

But Ruth was not fully satisfied with just helping her Italians. The very week she came back from camp she had gone to their old family physician who held a high and responsible position in the medical world, and made her plea:

"Daddy-Doctor," she said, using her old childish name for him, "you've got to find a way for me to go over there and help the war. I know I don't know much about nursing, but I'm sure I could learn. I've taken care of Grandpa and Auntie a great many times and watched the trained nurses, and I'm sure if Lalla Farrington and Bernice Brooks could get into the Red Cross and go over in such a short time I'm as bright as they."

"Brighter!" said the old doctor eyeing her approvingly. "But what will your people say?"

"They'll have to let me, Daddy-Doctor. Besides, everybody else is doing it, and you know that has great weight with Aunt Rhoda."

"It's a hard life, child! You never saw much of pain and suffering and horror."

"Well, it's time, then."

"But those men over there you would have to care for will not be like your grandfather and aunt. They will be dirty and bloody, and covered with filth and vermin."

"Well, what of that!"

"Could you stand it?"

"So you think I'm a butterfly, too, do you, Daddy-Doctor? Well, I want to prove to you that I'm not. I've been doing my best to get used to dirt and distress. I washed a little sick Italian baby yesterday and helped it's mother scrub her floor and make the house clean."

"The dickens you did!" beamed the doctor proudly. "I always knew you had a lot of grit. I guess you've got the right stuff in you. But say, if I help you you've got to tell me the real reason why you want to go, or else—nothing doing! Understand? I know you aren't like the rest, just wanting to get into the excitement and meet a lot of officers and have a good time so you can say afterward you were there. You aren't that kind of a girl. What's the real reason you want to go? Have you got somebody over there you're interested in?"

He looked at her keenly, with loving, anxious eyes as her father's friend who had known her from birth might look.

Ruth's face grew rosy, and her eyes dropped, but lifted again undaunted:

"And if I have, Daddy-Doctor, is there anything wrong about that?"

The doctor frowned:

"It isn't that fat chump of a Wainwright, is it? Because if it is I shan't lift my finger to help you go."

But Ruth's laugh rang out clear and free.

"Never! dear friend, never! Set your mind at rest about him," she finished, sobering down. "And if I care for someone, Daddy-Doctor, can't you trust me I'd pick out someone who was all right?"

"I suppose so!" grumbled the doctor only half satisfied, "but girls are so dreadfully blind."

"I think you'd like him," she hazarded, her cheeks growing pinker, "that is, you would if there is anybody," she corrected herself laughing. "But you see, it's a secret yet and maybe always will be. I'm not sure that he knows, and I'm not quite sure I know myself——"

"Oh, I see!" said the doctor watching her sweet face with a tender jealousy in his eyes. "Well, I suppose I'll help you to go, but I'll shoot him, remember, if he doesn't turn out to be all right. It would take a mighty superior person to be good enough for you, little girl."

"That's just what he is," said Ruth sweetly, and then rising and stooping over him she dropped a kiss on the wavy silver lock of hair that hung over the doctor's forehead.

"Thank you, Daddy-Doctor! I knew you would," she said happily. "And please don't be too long about it. I'm in a great hurry."

The doctor promised, of course. No one could resist Ruth when she was like that, and in due time certain forces were set in operation to the end that she might have her desire.

Meanwhile, as she waited, Ruth filled her days with thoughts of others, not forgetting Cameron's mother for whom she was always preparing some little surprise, a dainty gift, some fruit or flowers, a book that she thought might comfort and while away her loneliness, a restful ride at the early evening, all the little things that a thoughtful daughter might do for a mother. And Cameron's mother wrote him long letters about it all which would have delighted his heart during those dreary days if they could only have reached him then.

Ruth's letters to Cameron were full of the things she was doing, full of her sweet wise thoughts that seemed to be growing wiser every day. She had taken pictures of her Italian friends and introduced him to them one by one. She had filled every page with little word pictures of her daily life. It seemed a pity that he could not have had them just when he needed them most. It would have filled her with dismay if she could have known the long wandering journey that was before those letters before they would finally reach him; she might have been discouraged from writing them.

Little Mrs. Beck was suddenly sent for one Sunday morning to attend her sister who was very ill, and she hastily called Ruth over the telephone and begged her to take her place at the Sunday school. Ruth promised to secure some one to teach the lesson, but found to her dismay that no one was willing to go at such short notice. And so, with trembling heart she knelt for a hasty petition that God would guide her and show her how to lead these simple people in the worship of the day.

As she stood before them trying to make plain in the broken, mixed Italian and English, the story of the blind man, which was the lesson for the day, there came over her a sense of her great responsibility. She knew that these people trusted her and that what she told them they would believe, and her heart lifted itself in a sharp cry for help, for light, to give to them. She felt an appalling lack of knowledge and experience herself. Where had she been all these young years of her life, and what had she been doing that she had not learned the way of life so that she might put it before them?

Before her sat a woman bowed with years, her face seamed with sorrow and hard work, and grimed with lack of care, a woman whose husband frequently beat her for attending Sunday school. There were four men on the back seat, hard workers, listening with eager eyes, assenting vigorously when she spoke of the sorrow on the earth. They, too, had seen trouble. They sat there patient, sad-eyed, wistful; what could she show them out of the Book of God to bring a light of joy to their faces? There were little children whose future looked so full of hard knocks and toil that it seemed a wonder they were willing to grow up knowing what was before them. The money that had smoothed her way thus far through life was not for them. The comfortable home and food and raiment and light and luxury that had made her life so full of ease were almost unknown to them. Had she anything better to offer them than mere earthly comforts which probably could never be theirs, no matter how hard they might strive? But, after all, money and ease could in no way soothe the pain of the heart, and she had come close enough already to these people to know they had each one his own heart's pain and sorrow to bear. There was one man who had lost five little children by death. That death had come in consequence of dirt and ignorance made it no easier to bear. The dirt and ignorance had not all been his fault. People who were wiser and had not cared to help were to blame. What was the remedy for the world's sorrow, the world's need?

Ruth knew in a general way that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world, that His name should be the remedy for evil; but how to put it to them in simple form, ah! that was it. It was Cameron's search for God, and it seemed that all the world was on the same search. But now to-day she had suddenly come on some of the footprints of the Man of Sorrow as He toiled over the mountains of earth searching for lost humanity, and her own heart echoed His love and sorrow for the world. She cried out in her helplessness for something to give to these wistful people.

Somehow the prayer must have been answered, for the little congregation hung upon her words, and one old man with deep creases in his forehead and kindly wrinkles around his eyes spoke out in meeting and said:

"I like God. I like Him good. I like Him all e time wi' mee! All e time. Ev'e where! Him live in my house!"

The tears sprang to her eyes with answering sympathy. Here in her little mission she had found a brother soul, seeking after God. She had another swift vision then of what the kinship of the whole world meant, and how Christ could love everybody.

After Sunday school was out little Sanda came stealing up to her:

"Mine brudder die," she said sorrowfully.

"What? Tony? The pretty fat baby? Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Ruth putting her arm tenderly around the little girl. "Where is your mother? I must go and see her."

Down the winding unkept road they walked, the delicately reared girl and the little Italian drudge, to the hovel where the family were housed, a tumbled-down affair of ancient stone, tawdrily washed over in some season past with scaling pink whitewash. The noisy abode of the family pig was in front of the house in the midst of a trim little garden of cabbage, lettuce, garlic, and tomatoes. But the dirty swarming little house usually so full of noise and good cheer was tidy to-day, and no guests hovered on the brief front stoop sipping from a friendly bottle, or playing the accordion. There was not an accordion heard in the community, for there had been a funeral that morning and every one was trying to be quiet out of respect for the bereaved parents.

And there in the open doorway, in his shirt sleeves, crouched low upon the step, sat the head of the house, his swarthy face bowed upon his knees, a picture of utter despair, and just beyond the mother's head was bowed upon her folded arms on the window seat, and thus they mourned in public silence before their little world.

Ruth's heart went out to the two poor ignorant creatures in their grief as she remembered the little dark child with the brown curls and glorious eyes who had resembled one of Raphael's cherubs, and thought how empty the mother's arms would be without him.

"Oh, Sanda, tell your mother how sorry I am!" she said to the little girl, for the mother could not speak or understand English. "Tell her not to mourn so terribly, dear. Tell her that the dear baby is safe and happy with Jesus! Tell her she will go to Him some day."

And as the little girl interpreted her words, suddenly Ruth knew that what she was speaking was truth, truth she might have heard before but never recognized or realized till now.

The mother lifted her sorrowful face all tear swollen and tried a pitiful smile, nodded to say she understood, then dropped sobbing again upon the window sill. The father lifted a sad face, not too sober, but blear-eyed and pitiful, too, in his hopelessness, and nodded as if he accepted the fact she had told but it gave him no comfort, and then went back to his own despair.

Ruth turned away with aching heart, praying: "Oh, God, they need you! Come and comfort them. I don't know how!" But somehow, on her homeward way she seemed to have met and been greeted by her Saviour.

It was so she received her baptism for the work that she was to do.

The next day permission came for her to go to France, and she entered upon her brief training.

"Don't you dread to have her go?" asked a neighbor of Aunt Rhoda.

"Oh, yes," sighed the good lady comfortably, "but then she is going in good company, and it isn't as if all the best people weren't doing it. Of course, it will be great experience for her, and I wouldn't want to keep her out of it. She'll meet a great many nice people over there that she might not have met if she had stayed at home. Everybody, they tell me, is at work over there. She'll be likely to meet the nobility. It isn't as if we didn't have friends there, too, who will be sure to invite her over week ends. If she gets tired she can go to them, you know. And really, I was glad to have something come up to take her away from that miserable little country slum she has been so crazy about. I was dreadfully afraid she would catch something there or else they would rob us and murder us and kidnap her some day."

And that was the way things presented themselves to Aunt Rhoda!



XIX

All day the shells had been flying thick and fast. When night settled down the fire was so continuous that one could trace the battle front by the reflection in the sky.

Cameron stood at his post under the stars and cried out in his soul for God. For days now Death had stalked them very close. His comrades had fallen all about him. There seemed to be no chance for safety. And where was God? Had He no part in all this Hell on earth? Did He not care? Would He not be found? All his seeking and praying and reading of the little book seemed to have brought God no nearer. He was going out pretty soon, in the natural order of the battle if things kept on, out into the other life, without having found the God who had promised that if he would believe, and if he would seek with all his heart he would surely find Him.

Once in a Y.M.C.A. hut on a Sunday night a great tenor came to entertain them, and sang almost the very words that the stranger back in the States had written in his little book:

"If with, all your hearts ye truly seek Him ye shall ever surely find him. Thus saith your God!"

And ever since that song had rung its wonderful melody down deep in his heart he had been seeking, seeking in all the ways he knew, with a longing that would not be satisfied. And yet he seemed to have found nothing.

So now as he walked silently beneath the stars, looking up, his soul was crying out with the longing of despair to find a Saviour, the Christ of his soul. Amid all the shudderings of the battle-rent earth, the concussions of the bursting shells, could even God hear a soul's low cry?

Suddenly out in the darkness in front of him there flickered a tiny light, only a speck of a glint it was, the spark of a cigarette, but it was where it had no business to be, and it was Cameron's business to see that it was not there. They had been given strict orders that there must be no lights and no sounds to give away their position. Even though his thoughts were with the stars in his search for God, his senses were keen and on the alert. He sprang instantly and silently, appearing before the delinquent like a miracle.

"Halt!" he said under his breath. "Can that cigarette!"

"I guess you don't know who I am!" swaggered a voice thick and unnatural that yet had a familiar sound.

"It makes no difference who you are, you can't smoke on this post while I'm on duty. Those are my orders!" and with a quick motion he caught the cigarette from the loose lips and extinguished it, grinding it into the ground with his heel.

"I'll—have you—c-c-co-marshalled fer this!" stuttered the angry officer, stepping back unsteadily and raising his fist.

In disgust Cameron turned his back and walked away. How had Wainwright managed to bring liquor with him to the front? Something powerful and condensed, no doubt, to steady his nerves in battle. Wainwright had ever been noted for his cowardice. His breath was heavy with it. How could a man want to meet death in such a way? He turned to look again, and Wainwright was walking unsteadily away across the line where they had been forbidden to go, out into the open where the shells were flying. Cameron watched him for an instant with mingled feelings. To think he called himself a man, and dared to boast of marrying such a woman as Ruth Macdonald. Well, what if he did go into danger and get killed! The world was better off without him! Cameron's heart was burning hot within him. His enemy was at last within his power. No one but himself had seen Wainwright move off in that direction where was certain death within a few minutes. It was no part of his duty to stop him. He was not supposed to know he had been drinking.

The whistle of a shell went ricocheting through the air and Cameron dropped as he had been taught to do, but lifted his eyes in time to see Wainwright throw up his arms, drop on the edge of the hill, and disappear. The shell plowed its way in a furrow a few feet away and Cameron rose to his feet. Sharply, distinctly, in a brief lull of the din about him he heard his name called. It sounded from down the hill, a cry of distress, but it did not sound like Wainwright's voice:

"Cameron! Come! Help!"

He obeyed instantly, although, strange to say, he had no thought of its being Wainwright. He crept cautiously out to the edge of the hill and looked over. The blare of the heavens made objects below quite visible. He could see Wainwright huddled as he had fallen. While he looked the injured man lifted his head, struggled to crawl feebly, but fell back again. He felt a sense of relief that at last his enemy was where he could do no more harm. Then, through the dim darkness he saw a figure coming toward the prostrate form, and stooping over to touch him. It showed white against the darkness and it paid no heed to the shell that suddenly whistled overhead. It half lifted the head of the fallen officer, and then straightened up and looked toward Cameron; and again, although there was no sound audible now in the din that the battle was making, he felt himself called.

A strange thrill of awe possessed him. Was that the Christ out there whom he had been seeking? And what did he expect of him? To come out there to his enemy? To the man who had been in many ways the curse of his young life?

Suddenly as he still hesitated a verse from his Testament which had often come to his notice returned clearly to his mind:

"If thou bringest thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."

Was this, then, what was required of him? Had his hate toward Wainwright been what had hindered him from finding God?

There was no time now to argue that this man was not his brother. The man would be killed certainly if he lay there many minutes. The opportunity would pass as quickly as it had come. The Christ he sought was out there expecting him to come, and he must lose no time in going to Him. How gladly would he have faced death to go to Him! But Wainwright! That was different! Could it be this that was required of him? Then back in his soul there echoed the words: "If with all your heart ye truly seek." Slowly he crept forward over the brow of the hill, and into the light, going toward that white figure above the huddled dark one; creeping painfully, with bullets ripping up the earth about him. He was going to the Christ, with all his heart—yes, all his heart! Even if it meant putting by his enmity forever!

Somewhere on the way he understood.

When he reached the fallen man there was no white figure there, but he was not surprised nor disappointed. The Christ was not there because he had entered into his heart. He had found Him at last!

* * * * *

Back at the base hospital they told Wainwright one day how Cameron had crawled with him on his back, out from under the searchlights amid the shells, and into safety. It was the only thing that saved his life, for if he had lain long with the wound he had got, there would have been no chance for him. Wainwright, when he heard it, lay thoughtful for a long time, a puzzled, half-sullen look on his face. He saw that everybody considered Cameron a hero. There was no getting away from that the rest of his life. One could not in decency be an enemy of a man who had saved one's life. Cameron had won out in a final round. It would not be good policy not to recognize it. It would be entirely too unpopular. He must make friends with him. It would be better to patronize him than to be patronized by him. Perhaps also, down in the depths of his fat selfish heart there was a little bit of gratitude mixed with it all. For he did love life, and he was a mortal coward.

So he sent for Cameron one day, and Cameron came. He did not want to come. He dreaded the interview worse than anything he had ever had to face before. But he came. He came with the same spirit he had gone out into the shell-fire after Wainwright. Because he felt that the Christ asked it of him.

He stood stern and grave at the foot of the little hospital cot and listened while Wainwright pompously thanked him, and told him graciously that now that he had saved his life he was going to put aside all the old quarrels and be his friend. Cameron smiled sadly. There was no bitterness in his smile. Perhaps just the least fringe of amusement, but no hardness. He even took the bandaged hand that was offered as a token that peace had come between them who had so long been at war. All the time were ringing in his heart the words: "With all your heart! With all your heart!" He had the Christ, what else mattered?

Somehow Wainwright felt that he had not quite made the impression on this strong man that he had hoped, and in an impulse to be more than gracious he reached his good hand under his pillow and brought forth an envelope.

When Corporal Cameron saw the writing on that envelop he went white under the tan of the battlefield, but he stood still and showed no other sign:

"When I get back home I'm going to be married," said the complacent voice, "and my wife and I will want you to come and take dinner with us some day. I guess you know who the girl is. She lives in Bryne Haven up on the hill. Her name is Ruth Macdonald. I've just had a letter from her. I'll have to write her how you saved my life. She'll want to thank you, too."

How could Cameron possibly know that that envelope addressed in Ruth Macdonald's precious handwriting contained nothing but the briefest word of thanks for an elaborate souvenir that Wainwright had sent her from France?

"What's the matter with Cammie?" his comrades asked one another when he came back to his company. "He looks as though he had lost his last friend. Did he care so much for that Wainwright guy that he saved? I'm sure I don't see what he sees in him. I wouldn't have taken the trouble to go out after him, would you?"

Cameron's influence had been felt quietly among his company. In his presence the men refrained from certain styles of conversation, when he sat apart and read his Testament they hushed their boisterous talk, and lately some had come to read with him. He was generally conceded to be the bravest man in their company, and when a fellow had to die suddenly he liked Cameron to hold him in his arms.

So far Cameron had not had a scratch, and the men had come to think he had a charmed life. More than he knew he was beloved of them all. More than they knew their respect for him was deepening into a kind of awe. They felt he had a power with him that they understood not. He was still the silent corporal. He talked not at all of his new-found experience, yet it shone in his face in a mysterious light. Even after he came from Wainwright with that stricken look, there was above it all a glory behind his eyes that not even that could change. For three days he went into the thick of the battle, moving from one hairbreadth escape to another with the calmness of an angel who knows his life is not of earth, and on the fourth day there came the awful battle, the struggle for a position that had been held by the enemy for four years, and that had been declared impregnable from the side of the Allies.

The boys all fought bravely and many fell, but foremost of them all passing unscathed from height to height, Corporal Cameron on the lead in fearlessness and spirit; and when the tide at last was turned and they stood triumphant among the dead, and saw the enemy retiring in disorder, it was Cameron who was still in the forefront, his white face and tattered uniform catching the last rays of the setting sun.

Later when the survivors had all come together one came to the captain with a white face and anxious eyes:

"Captain, where's Cammie? We can't find him anywhere."

"He came a half hour ago and volunteered to slip through the enemy's lines to-night and send us back a message," he said in husky tones.

"But, captain, he was wounded!"

"He was?" The captain looked up startled. "He said nothing about it!"

"He wouldn't, of course," said the soldier. "He's that way. But he was wounded in the arm. I helped him bind it up."

"How bad?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't let me look. He said he would attend to it when he got back."

"Well, he's taken a wireless in his pocket and crept across No Man's Land to find out what the enemy is going to do. He's wearing a dead Jerry's uniform——!"

The captain turned and brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and a low sound between a sob and a whispered cheer went up from the gathered remnant as they rendered homage to their comrade.

* * * * *

For three days the messages came floating in, telling vital secrets that were of vast strategic value. Then the messages ceased, and the anxious officers and comrades looked in vain for word. Two more days passed—three—and still no sign that showed that he was alive, and the word went forth "Missing!" and "Missing" he was proclaimed in the newspapers at home.

That night there was a lull in the sector where Cameron's company was located. No one could guess what was going on across the wide dark space called No Man's Land. The captain sent anxious messages to other officers, and the men at the listening posts had no clue to give. It was raining and a chill bias sleet that cut like knives was driving from the northeast. Water trickled into the dugouts, and sopped through the trenches, and the men shuddered their way along dark passages and waited. Only scattered artillery fire lit up the heavens here and there. It was a night when all hell seemed let loose to have its way with earth. The watch paced back and forth and prayed or cursed, and counted the minutes till his watch would be up. Across the blackness of No Man's Land pock-marked with great shell craters, there raged a tempest, and even a Hun would turn his back and look the other way in such a storm.

Slowly, oh so slow that not even the earth would know it was moving, there crept a dark creature forth from the enemy line. A thing all of spirit could not have gone more invisibly. Lying like a stone as motionless for spaces uncountable, stirring every muscle with a controlled movement that could stop at any breath, lying under the very nose of the guard without being seen for long minutes, and gone when next he passed that way; slowly, painfully gaining ground, with a track of blood where the stones were cruel, and a holding of breath when the fitful flare lights lit up the way; covered at times by mud from nearby bursting shells; faint and sick, but continuing to creep; chilled and sore and stiff, blinded and bleeding and torn, shell holes and stones and miring mud, slippery and sharp and never ending, the long, long trail——!

"Halt!" came a sharp, clear voice through the night.

"Pat! Come here! What is that?" whispered the guard. "Now watch! I'm sure I saw it move——There! I'm going to it!"

"Better look out!" But he was off and back with something in his arms. Something in a ragged blood-soaked German uniform.

They turned a shaded flash light into the face and looked:

"Pat, it's Cammie!" The guard was sobbing.

At sound of the dear old name the inert mass roused to action.

"Tell Cap—they're planning to slip away at five in the morning. Tell him if he wants to catch them he must do it now! Don't mind me! Go quick!"

The voice died away and the head dropped back.

With a last wistful look Pat was off to the captain, but the guard gathered Cameron up in his arms tenderly and nursed him like a baby, crooning over him in the sleet and dark, till Pat came back with a stretcher and some men who bore him to the dressing station lying inert between them.

While men worked over his silent form his message was flashing to headquarters and back over the lines to all the posts along that front. The time had come for the big drive. In a short time a great company of dark forms stole forth across No Man's Land till they seemed like a wide dark sea creeping on to engulf the enemy.

Next morning the newspapers of the world set forth in monstrous type the glorious victory and how the Americans had stolen upon the enemy and cut them off from the rest of their army, wiping out a whole salient.

But while the world was rejoicing, John Cameron lay on his little hard stretcher in the tent and barely breathed. He had not opened his eyes nor spoken again.



XX

A nurse stepped up to the doctor's desk:

"A new girl is here ready for duty. Is there any special place you want her put?" she asked in a low tone.

The doctor looked up with a frown:

"One of those half-trained Americans, I suppose?" he growled. "Well, every little helps. I'd give a good deal for half a dozen fully trained nurses just now. Suppose you send her to relieve Miss Jennings. She can't do any harm to number twenty-nine."

"Isn't there any hope for him?" the nurse asked, a shade of sadness in her eyes.

"I'm afraid not!" said the doctor shortly. "He won't take any interest in living, that's the trouble. He isn't dying of his wounds. Something is troubling him. But it's no use trying to find out what. He shuts up like a clam."

The new nurse flushed outside the door as she heard herself discussed and shut her firm little lips in a determined way as she followed the head nurse down the long rows of cots to an alcove at the end where a screen shut the patient from view.

Miss Jennings, a plain girl with tired eyes, gave a few directions and she was left with her patient. She turned toward the cot and stopped with a soft gasp of recognition, her face growing white and set as she took in the dear familiar outline of the fine young face before her. Every word she had heard outside the doctor's office rang distinctly in her ears. He was dying. He did not want to live. With another gasp that was like a sob she slipped to her knees beside the cot, forgetful of her duties, of the ward outside, or the possible return of the nurses, forgetful of everything but that he was there, her hero of the years!

She reached for one of his hands, the one that was not bandaged, and she laid her soft cheek against it, and held her breath to listen. Perhaps even now behind that quiet face the spirit had departed beyond her grasp.

There was no flutter of the eyelids even. She could not see that he still breathed, although his hand was not cold, and his face when she touched it still seemed human. She drew closer in an agony of fear, and laid her lips against his cheek, and then her face softly, with one hand about his other cheek. Her lips were close to his ear now.

"John!" she whispered softly, "John! My dear knight!"

There was a quiver of the eyelids now, a faint hesitating sigh. She touched her lips to his and spoke his name again. A faint smile flickered over his features as if he were seeing other worlds of beauty that had no connection here. But still she continued to press her face against his cheek and whisper his name.

At last he opened his eyes, with a bewildered, wondering gaze and saw her. The old dear smile broke forth:

"Ruth! You here? Is this—heaven?"

"Not yet," she whispered softly. "But it's earth, and the war is over! I've come to help you get well and take you home! It's really you and you're not 'Missing' any more."

Then without any excuse at all she laid her lips on his forehead and kissed him. She had read her permit in his eyes.

His well arm stole out and pressed her to him hungrily:

"It's—really you and you don't belong to anybody else?" he asked, anxiously searching her face for his answer.

"Oh, John! I never did belong to anybody else but you. All my life ever since I was a little girl I've thought you were wonderful! Didn't you know that? Didn't you see down at camp? I'm sure it was written all over my face."

His hand crept up and pressed her face close against his:

"Oh, my darling!" he breathed, "my darling! The most wonderful girl in the world!"

When the doctor and nurse pushed back the screen and entered the little alcove the new nurse sat demurely at the foot of the cot, but a little while later the voice of the patient rang out joyously:

"Doctor, how soon can I get out of this. I think I've stayed here about long enough."

The wondering doctor touched his patient's forehead, looked at him keenly, felt his pulse with practised finger, and replied:

"I've been thinking you'd get to this spot pretty soon. Some beef tea, nurse, and make it good and strong. We've got to get this fellow on his feet pretty quick for I can see he's about done lying in bed."

Then the wounds came in for attention, and Ruth stood bravely and watched, quivering in her heart over the sight, yet never flinching in her outward calm.

When the dressing of the wounds was over the doctor stood back and surveyed his patient:

"Well, you're in pretty good shape now, and if you keep on you can leave here in about a week. Thank fortune there isn't any more front to go back to! But now, if you don't mind I'd like to know what's made this marvellous change in you?"

The light broke out on Cameron's face anew. He looked at the doctor smiling, and then he looked at Ruth, and reached out his hand to get hers:

"You see," he said, "I—we—Miss Macdonald's from my home town and——"

"I see," said the doctor looking quizzically from one happy face to the other, "but hasn't she always been from your home town?"

Cameron twinkled with his old Irish grin:

"Always," he said solemnly, "but, you see, she hasn't always been here."

"I see," said the doctor again looking quizzically into the sweet face of the girl, and doing reverence to her pure beauty with his gaze. "I congratulate you, corporal," he said, and then turning to Ruth he said earnestly: "And you, too, Madame. He is a man if there ever was one."

In the quiet evening when the wards were put to sleep and Ruth sat beside his cot with her hand softly in his, Cameron opened his eyes from the nap he was supposed to be taking and looked at her with his bright smile.

"I haven't told you the news," he said softly. "I have found God. I found Him out on the battlefield and He is great! It's all true! But you have to search for Him with all your heart, and not let any little old hate or anything else hinder you, or it doesn't do any good."

Ruth, with her eyes shining, touched her lips softly to the back of his bandaged hand that lay near her and whispered softly:

"I have found Him, too, dear. And I realize that He has been close beside me all the time, only my heart was so full of myself that I never saw Him before. But, oh, hasn't He been wonderful to us, and won't we have a beautiful time living for Him together the rest of our lives?"

Then the bandaged hand went out and folded her close, and Cameron uttered his assent in words too sacred for other ears to hear.

THE END