te of this initial clash Uncle Will was still commanding the
post. Stone, with the Sixty-first, came later. Priscilla, finding her
uncle ever smilingly tolerant of her views, but never shaken in his own,
had first essayed an inspection of the Canteen--she would not call it
the Exchange--and then had descended upon the chaplain--a gentle divine,
gifted with much faith but little force, a kindly, sweet-tempered cleric
ever ready to follow if never to lead in good work that demanded
personal push and energy. Priscilla had spent sleepless hours in thought
over the situation. She could not abolish the Canteen since the law
("The law _and_ the prophets," said Uncle Will, though Priscilla would
not hear) sustained it. She could, she reasoned, conduct a rival
establishment that should wean the soldier from the false faith to the
true, and to this end she sought the aid of the cassock.

Uncle Will had taken her, at her request, to see the objectionable
institution, and she had peered curiously about the cozy interior. At
sight of their much honored squadron leader, the few troopers at the
tables, busy with checkers, dominoes or billiards, had sprung to
attention, facing him and the grave-eyed lady by his side, and there
stood in soldierly respect. Ray smilingly acknowledged their homage,
bade them go on with their games; he merely wished his niece from the
East "to see how we manage to live in the West." Then he showed her the
bookshelves and the reading room with its illustrated weeklies and
magazines, the well-furnished writing tables whereat certain young
soldiers were working at their letters home; the refreshment counter,
with its appetizing little stack of sandwiches and polished urn of
steaming coffee, and all this Priscilla saw without sign of surrender.
What she looked for she did not find--symptoms of the inevitable
intoxication and debauchery to be expected wherever liquor was sold or
used. Some of the men had half-emptied beer glasses at their elbow. Two
German non-commissioned officers were sipping appreciatively the wine of
their native Rhineland as they chatted in quiet comfort over their
little table at the window. A veteran sergeant stepped forward and
begged the honor of tendering the colonel and the lady a glass of their
wine, and again every man was on his feet as Ray drank to their health,
and Priscilla thanked their entertainers and said she would be glad of a
little coffee--she never used wine. She was sile