hook his head.

"You're warm," he said, "but it's more serious than manoeuvres. It's the
Real Thing." From his pocketbook he took a visiting card and laid it on
the table. "I'm 'Sherry' McCoy," he said, "Captain of Artillery in the
United States Army." He nodded to the hand telephone on the table.

"You can call up Governor's Island and get General Wood or his aide,
Captain Dorey, on the phone. They sent me here. Ask THEM. I'm not
picking out gun sites for the Germans; I'm picking out positions of
defense for Americans when the Germans come!"

Van Vorst laughed derisively.

"My word!" he exclaimed. "You're as bad as Jimmie!"

Captain McCoy regarded him with disfavor.

"And you, sir," he retorted, "are as bad as ninety million other
Americans. You WON'T believe! When the Germans are shelling this hill,
when they're taking your hunters to pull their cook-wagons, maybe,
you'll believe THEN."

"Are you serious?" demanded Van Vorst. "And you an army officer?"

"That's why I am serious," returned McCoy. "WE know. But when we try to
prepare for what is coming, we must do it secretly--in underhand ways,
for fear the newspapers will get hold of it and ridicule us, and accuse
us of trying to drag the country into war. That's why we have to prepare
under cover. That's why I've had to skulk around these hills like a
chicken thief. And," he added sharply, "that's why that boy must not
know who I am. If he does, the General Staff will get a calling down at
Washington, and I'll have my ears boxed."

Van Vorst moved to the door.

"He will never learn the truth from me," he said. "For I will tell him
you are to be shot at sunrise."

"Good!" laughed the Captain. "And tell me his name. If ever we fight
over Westchester County, I want that lad for my chief of scouts. And
give him this. Tell him to buy a new scout uniform. Tell him it comes
from you."

But no money could reconcile Jimmie to the sentence imposed upon his
captive. He received the news with a howl of anguish. "You mustn't," he
begged; "I never knowed you'd shoot him! I wouldn't have caught him, if
I'd knowed that. I couldn't sleep if I thought he was going to be shot
at sunrise." At the prospect of unending nightmares Jimmie's voice shook
with terror. "Make it for twenty years," he begged. "Make it for ten,"
he coaxed, "but, please, promise you won't shoot him."

When Van Vorst returned to Captain McCoy, he was smiling, and the butler
who followed, bearing a tr