what non-combatant branch that fellow
Pitson would prefer to serve in, see what unit will have him, and
then bring the transfer papers to me to sign."

Passing into the corridor, and hearing the piano's notes in the
mess-room he glanced inside. It was a rest period between drills,
and a soldier seated at the instrument strummed his way through
the air of a mournful ditty. It's an odd thing that when the
average soldier is wholly cheerful he prefers the "sobful" melodies.

At one of the long mess tables near the piano sat four young men,
paying no heed to the music, nor, in fact, doing anything in
particular.

"How many of you men have mothers?" Prescott asked with a smile.

All admitted that they had.

"How many of you have written that mother to-day?"

None had.

"How many wrote her yesterday?" None.

"Think hard," Dick went on. "Has any of you written his mother
a letter within five days?"

One soldier asserted that he had written his mother four days before.

"I wish you men would do me a favor," Dick went on. "Each one
of you write his mother at least a four-page letter and mail it
before supper. There is going to be time enough between drills
to-day. How about it?"

Each of the four soldiers standing at attention promised promptly.

"All right, then," Prescott nodded. "Rest!" Whereupon they resumed
their seats on the bench. "Remember that a promise is a promise.
And I've seen enough of soldiers to know that they're likely to
be careless where it hurts most."

"I'd do anything Captain Prescott asked me to do," remarked one
of the soldiers when Dick had passed on out of barracks.

"If I knew anything he wanted me to do I'd do it before he asked
me," declared another.

When a captain's men feel that way about him it's a cinch that
he commands a real fighting unit.

CHAPTER IX

ORDERS FOR "OVER THERE"

During the next drill period Sergeant Kelly, hearing an angry
voice, glanced out through the window.

In the last draft to the company some green recruits had come in,
men who had been drafted to the National Army and sent to the
Regulars to fill up. Among them were Privates Ellis and Rindle.

"About face!" rapped out the crisp tones of Corporal Barrow, as
he glared at eight men in double rank.

Badly enough most of them turned. "You poor mutt-heads!" rasped
the corporal. "Do you think you'll ever make soldiers?"

In a jiffy Kelly reached for his campaign hat, put it on, a