selves all sorts
of awful names for being "brutes" to their adored Little Captain, and
when the storm cleared up everything seemed brighter and they could even
smile a little.

Then that night, when the little god of hope seemed about to take his
accustomed place in the hearts of the Outdoor Girls, there came another
blow, even more staggering than the ones that had gone before.

As Betty was scanning the casualty list with terrified, yet eager, eyes,
she gave a little cry, half gasp and half sob that brought the girls
running to her.

Her face was ashen pale, and she pointed with trembling finger to a name
half-way down in the column.

"Oh, girls, it's come--it's come! Allen! Allen! It can't be true!" and
she dropped her head upon her arms, crumpling the paper in her hand.

CHAPTER XX

MISSING

Mollie took the paper from Betty's unresisting hand, smoothed it out,
traced her finger down the column and finally came to the name she
sought.

"Sergeant Allen Washburn," she read in a small, awed voice, while the
other girls crowded close to look over her shoulder.

"Dead?" queried Grace breathlessly.

"No," Mollie shook her head. "He's among the missing."

"That means," said Betty, lifting a face so still and white that it
startled the girls, "that he is either dead or worse than dead. I would
a thousand times rather he were dead than have him taken prisoner by the
Germans."

"But we don't know that he has been captured--"

"That's what missing almost always means," insisted Betty, still in that
strange, lifeless voice. "That," she added, as though speaking to
herself, "was the column I always read first, because I was most afraid
of it. I think," she got up unsteadily, and Mollie ran around to her,
"that if you don't mind, I'll go upstairs a little while."

She started for the door while the girls watched her dumbly, not knowing
what to do or say. Then suddenly Grace ran after her.

"Betty, darling!" she cried, her own grief forgotten in her pity for her
chum, "let me come too, won't you? I don't suppose I'd be any good to
you just now, but I'd do my best."

"Let us all come, won't you, Dear?" begged Mollie, while Amy's eyes
silently pleaded.

But Betty only shook her head, smiling a pitiful little white smile, at
them.

"Not just now--please," she said. "After a while I'll--I'll call you."

They watched her run upstairs and heard her door close quietly, oh, so
quietly, behind her.

Left