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