ese days.
There's Captain Peters waving something at us right now, Tom!"

"Letters, Jack, and a sheaf of them at that!"

"Come on, let's run!" urged the impatient one, suiting his actions to the
words by starting off on a gallop.

Tom took it a little more slowly so that when he arrived and received his
letters from the aviation instructor, who happened to be in the camp at
the time, Jack was already deeply immersed in one which he had received.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun hung low in the west, looking fiery
red, which promised a fair day on the morrow. Once he had his letters,
however, Tom paid but scant attention to anything else.

His news from Virginia must have been pleasant, if one could judge from
the smile that rested upon his wind and sun-tanned face as he read on.
Again in memory he could see those loved ones in the old familiar haunts,
going about their daily tasks, or enjoying themselves as usual. And
whenever they sat under the well-remembered tree in the cool of the early
fall evening, with the soft Virginia air fanning their cheeks, the red
and golden hues of frost-touched leaves above them, he knew their talk
was mostly of him, the absent one, most fondly loved.

Tom looked up. He thought he had heard a groan, or something very
similar, break from the lips of his chum. It startled Tom so that when he
saw how troubled Jack looked a spasm of alarm gripped his heart.

"Why, what is the matter with you?" he cried, leaning forward and laying
a hand on the other's arm. "Have you had bad news from home?"

Jack nodded his head, and as he turned his eyes his chum saw there was a
look of acute anxiety in them.

"No one dead, or sick, I hope, Jack?" continued the other apprehensively.

"No, at least that is spared me, Tom; they are all well. But just the
same, it's a bad muddle. And the worst of it is I'm thousands of miles
off, held up by army regulations, when I ought to get home for a short
visit right away."

"See here, is it anything connected with that Burson property--has that
matter come to a head at last?" demanded Tom, as a light dawned upon him.

"Nothing less," assented the other gloomily. "The issue has been suddenly
forced, and may be settled any day. If I'm not there, according to the
eccentric will of my uncle, Joshua Adams Kinkaid, that property will fall
into the hands of my cousin, Randolph Carringford, who, as we both know,
is just at present over here acting in a confiden