id Tom eagerly. "If you'd be
willing, I'd like to."

"Of course you'd be under fire. Care to volunteer? Emergency work."

"Often I wished----"

"Care to volunteer?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"All right; go inside and get some sleep. They'll wake you up in about
an hour. Machine in good shape?"

This was nothing less than an insult. "I always keep it in good shape,"
said Tom. "I got extra----"

"All right. Go in and get some sleep; you haven't got long. The wire
boys will take care of you."

He strode away and began to talk hurriedly with another man who showed
him some papers and Tom watched him as one in a trance.

"Now you're in for it, kiddo," he heard some one say.

"R. I. P. for yours," volunteered another.

Tom knew well enough what R. I. P. meant. Often in his lonely night
rides through the towns close to the fighting he had seen it on row
after row of rough, carved wooden crosses.

"There won't be much _resting in peace_ to-night. How about it, Toul
sector?"

"I didn't feel very sleepy, anyway," said Tom.

He slept upon one of the makeshift straw bunks on the stone floor of the
cellar under the cottage. With the first streak of dawn he arose and
went quietly out and sat on a powder keg under a small window, tore
several pages out of his pocket blank-book and using his knee for a
desk, wrote:

"DEAR MARGARET:

"Maybe you'll be surprised, kind of, to get a letter from me. And
maybe you won't like me calling you Margaret. I told Roy to show
you my letters, cause I knew he'd be going into Temple Camp
office on account of the troop getting ready to go to Camp and I
knew he'd see you. I'd like to be going up to camp with them, and
I'd kind of like to be back in the office, too. I remember how I
used to be scared of you and you said you must be worse than the
Germans 'cause I wasn't afraid of them. I hope you're working
there yet and I'd like to see Mr. Burton, too.

"I was going to write to Roy but I decided I'd send a letter to
you because whenever something is going to happen the fellows
write letters home and leave them to be mailed in case they don't
get back. So if you get this you'll know I'm killed. Most of them
write to girls or their mothers, and as long as I haven't got any
mother I thought I'd write to you. Because maybe you'd like to
hear I'm killed more than anybody. I mean maybe you'd be more
interested.

"I'm