like himself, had known how to get down beneath the surface and commune
with him. Perhaps she was afraid or shy.

Now that he was really alone among all this mob of men of all sorts and
conditions, he had retired more and more into the inner sanctuary of self
and tried to think out the meaning of life. From the chaos that reigned
in his mind he presently selected a few things that he called "facts"
from which to work. These were "God, Hereafter, Death." These things he
must reckon with. He had been working on a wrong hypothesis all his life.
He had been trying to live for this world as if it were the end and aim
of existence, and now this war had come and this world had suddenly
melted into chaos. It appeared that he and thousands of others must
probably give up their part in this world before they had hardly tried
it, if they would set things right again for those that should come
after. But, even if he had lived out his ordinary years in peace and
success, and had all that life could give him, it would not have lasted
long, seventy years or so, and what were they after they were past? No,
there was something beyond or it all wouldn't have been made--this
universe with the carefully thought out details working harmoniously one
with another. It wouldn't have been worth while otherwise. There would
have been no reason for a heart life.

There were boys and men in the army who thought otherwise. Who had
accepted this life as being all. Among these were the ones who when they
found they were taken in the draft and must go to camp, had spent their
last three weeks of freedom drunk because they wanted to get all the
"fun" they could out of life that was left to them. They were the men who
were plunging into all the sin they could find before they went away to
fight because they felt they had but a little time to live and what did
it matter? But John Cameron was not one of these. His soul would not let
him alone until he had thought it all out, and he had come thus far with
these three facts, "God, Death, A Life Hereafter." He turned these over
in his mind for days and then he changed their order, "_Death, A Life
Hereafter, God_."

Death was the grim person he was going forth to meet one of these days or
months on the field of France or Italy, or somewhere "over there." He was
not to wait for Death to come and get him as had been the old order. This
was WAR and he was going out to challenge Death. He was convinced that
wh