"I know they are."

"When I left you up on that mountain, Tom, I promised to come right back
and register; and I did it, didn't I?"

"I told you nobody'd ever find out about that----"

"Never mind that. Will you do something for _me_ now? Will you say
you'll come?"

Tom hesitated. "I always said you'd be good at making speeches, and that
kind of thing, but----"

Roscoe thrust his hand straight out. "Give me your hand, Tom, and say
you'll come."

"Maybe I will."

"Say you'll come."

"I'd only stand in back after they put the lights down."

"Say you'll come," Roscoe persisted.

"All right."

"Sure, now?"

"I ain't the kind that breaks my word," said Tom dully. "But besides
that, I want to hear you."

Roscoe held his hand tight for a full minute. Then they parted and he
hurried along the River Road.

He was already late, but he would probably have hurried anyway, for when
the heart is dancing it is hard for the feet to move slowly. And
Roscoe's heart was dancing. He could "see straight" now, all right. To
be a soldier you must see straight as well as shoot straight.

He swung along the River Road with a fine air, as if he owned it, and
passing a small boy (bound across the river, perhaps) he lifted the
youngster's hat off and handed it to him with a laugh. When he reached
the Ellison cottage he deliberately kept pushing the bell button again
and again, just out of sheer exuberance, until Margaret herself threw
the door open and exclaimed,

"What in the world is the matter?"

"Nothing; can't you take a joke?"

"You're late," she said.

"Sure; I'm a punk soldier. That's a swell hat you've got on. Can you
hustle? If you don't mind, we'll take the short cut through the grove."

It _was_ a swell hat, there is no denying that, and she looked very
pretty in it.

"I'm taking my knitting," she said, handing him one of those sumptuous
bags with two vicious-looking knitting needles sticking out of it.

"I hate to go through the grove, it's so spooky," she said, as they
hurried along. "I'm always seeing things there. Do you, ever?"

"Oh, yes."

"Really? What?"

"Oh, lions and tigers and things."

"Now you make me afraid," she shuddered.

"I met a lion in there to-night," he said; "that's what delayed me. If I
see another one, I'll jab him with one of these knitting needles. Hear
that screech-owl? He sounds like the Kaiser'll feel next year.--Do you
know that Blakeley kid?"

"Roy? Surely I do. E