better--I'll say that
much for 'em, even though I--even though they never had much use for
me----"

He fell to thinking of the scout troop of which he had been a member
away back in America, of Mr. Ellsworth, the scoutmaster, who had lifted
him out of the gutter, and of Roy Blakeley who was always fooling, and
Peewee Harris. Peewee must be quite a boy by now--not a tenderfootlet
any more, as Roy had called him.

And then there was Rossie Bent who worked in the bank and who had run
away the night before Registration Day, hoping to escape military
service. Tom fell to thinking of him and of how he had traced him up to
a lonely mountain top and made him go back and register just in time to
escape disgrace and punishment.

"He thought he was a coward till he got the uniform on," he thought.
"That's what makes the difference. I bet he's one of the bravest
soldiers over here now. Funny if I should meet him. I always liked him
anyway, even when people said he was conceited. Maybe he had a right to
be. If girls liked me as much as they did him maybe _I'd_ be conceited.
Anyway, I'd like to see him again, that's one sure thing."

When he had finished his meal he felt of his tires, gave his grease cup
a turn, mounted his machine and was off to the north for whatever
awaited him there, whether it be death or glory or just hard work; and
to new friends whom he would meet and part with, who doubtless would
"josh" him and make fun of his hair and tell him extravagant yarns and
belittle and discredit his soberly and simply told "adventures," and yet
who would like him nevertheless.

"That's the funny thing about some fellers," he thought, "you never can
tell whether they like you or not. Rossie used to say girls were hard to
understand, but, gee, I think fellers are harder!"

Swiftly and silently along the moonlit road he sped, the dispatch-rider
who had come from the blue hills of Alsace across the war-scorched area
into the din and fire and stenching suffocation and red-running streams
of Picardy "for service as required." Two miles behind the straining
line he rode and parallel with it, straight northward, keeping his keen,
steady eyes fixed upon the road for shell holes. Over to the east he
could hear the thundering boom of artillery and once the air just above
him seemed to buzz as if some mammoth wasp had passed. But he rode
steadily, easily, without a tremor.

When he dismounted in front of headquarters at the little vil