ours
during the worst of it last night," he told Ruth. "Never mind. It
gave me another chapter for my new book. Surely! I'm going to write a
second one. They all do, you know. You rather get the habit."

"But, Charlie! Is--is there any news?" she asked him, with shaking
voice and eyes that told much of her anxiety.

He knew well what she meant, and he looked grim enough for a minute,
and nodded.

"Yes. A little."

"Oh, Charlie! They--they haven't found him?"

"No. Maybe they'd better _not_," breathed the boy, shaking his head.
"I don't think there's any hope, Miss Ruth."

"Oh, Charlie! He's not _dead_?"

"Better be," muttered the boy. "I wouldn't ask if I were you. It
looks bad for him--everybody says so."

"You know him, Charlie Bragg!" she burst out angrily. "Can _you_
believe Tom Cameron would do such a wicked thing as this they accuse
him of?"

"We-ell. I don't want to believe it," he agreed. "But, look here!"
and in desperation he pulled something from his pocket. "You know
that, don't you?"

"Why! Tom's matchbox!" cried the girl, taking the silver box and
seeing the initials of the lost soldier on the case. She had had it
engraved herself--and Helen had paid for the box. They had given it to
Tom when he went to Harvard for his Freshman course.

"Of course. I've seen him use it, too," Charlie Bragg hurried to say.
"I knew it and begged it of the fellow who found it."

"Where did he find it?"

"You know, some of our boys went across and visited the Heinies last
night," Charlie said gently. "They got right into the German trenches
and drove out the Heinies. And in a German dugout--before they blew it
up with bombs--this chap I talked with picked up that box."

"Oh, Charlie!" gasped the girl.

"Yes. He didn't see the significance of the monogram. He didn't know
Mr. Cameron personally, I think. He was slightly wounded and I helped
him with first aid. He gave the box to me as a German souvenir," and
the driver of the ambulance looked grim.

"Then they surely have got poor Tom!" whispered Ruth.

"At least, it looks as though he went over that way," agreed the boy
sadly.

"Don't speak so, Charlie!" she cried. "I tell you he has been taken
prisoner."

"We-ell," drawled her friend again, "we can't know about that."

"But we _will_ know!" she said, with added vehemence. "It will all
come out in time. Only--it will be too late to help poor Tom, then."

"Gosh!" groaned