you."

"It is nothing," exclaimed the soldier with a shrug of his shoulders.

"It is a great deal to me," said Leon. "I wonder where the others are."

"You had better sit down," said the soldier as Leon tried to rise from
his seat. "You are tired and your two comrades said they would call
for you."

"I know it," exclaimed Leon. "I'm all right though," and he rose to
his feet. Immediately, however, everything turned black before his
eyes and he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE BIG WAR

The next thing that Leon knew was when he opened his eyes to find
himself lying in a clean white cot with both Jacques and Earl standing
by the bedside.

"What happened?" inquired Leon dazedly.

"Nothing," laughed Earl, "except that you've been asleep for about
fifteen hours or so."

"How about our report?"

"That was made just about fifteen hours ago; just after you went to
sleep."

"But you said you'd stop for me."

"We did," smiled Earl. "We stopped for you all right, but you'd gone
and fainted and then you went to sleep and we thought we'd better not
wait."

"Did you make your report?" asked Leon eagerly. He was now sitting up
in bed and had almost forgotten his slightly wounded arm; in fact he
would have been entirely unconscious of it had it not been for the fact
that it was bandaged.

"We certainly did," said Jacques. "Major Villier seemed very much
pleased with what we had done and he said he would see to it that we
were mentioned at headquarters."

"Were they worried about us at all?"

"They were a little; they had expected us back sooner than we actually
did arrive."

"What did the major think of our blowing up that train?"

"It seemed to please him greatly," said Jacques. "In fact he was
almost as pleased about that as he was about our having delivered the
dispatches safely at Flambeau."

"I should think he'd been more glad about the train than the
dispatches," exclaimed Leon.

"We don't know what they were," Jacques reminded him. "Evidently they
were even more important than blowing up a munition-train."

"At any rate I'm glad Major Villier approved of what we did."

"He said we got into too many scrapes," laughed Earl. "He said that
unless we were careful we might get hurt."

"He was joking, wasn't he?"

"Of course he was; as though we went around looking for trouble."

"I want to get up," exclaimed Leon suddenly. "I want something to eat,
too, and I want it quick an