You’re just plain scared, I guess.”

“You’re just plain wrong. Anyway, people in glass shanties shouldn’t throw rocks. I don’t see you trying to play soldier.” The last speaker, a tall lad who sat nearest the window in the rear seat of a crowded railroad car seemed exasperated by the uncomplimentary suggestion of the boy beside him, a short, heavy-set, curly-headed fellow, who looked even more youthful than his sixteen years. His handsome face lighted up with a smile when he spoke; evidently there was but little enmity back of his teasing.

“If I were a telegraph pole and had your gray hairs, Stapley, you can bet your number nines I’d be in camp. But they won’t take kids.”

“That’s right, Richards; they won’t, unless a fellow’s dad signs his consent. My dad won’t do it. So kindly apologize, will you? My gray hairs deserve it; I’m a year older than you are, you know. Go on; I’m listening.”

“Come off! Anybody can coax his governor not to sign. Honest, now; don’t you like the idea of getting a bullet—?”

“Now cut that out. You think you’re some kidder, but it takes an expert to kid me. Of course I know you’re sore over the lambasting we gave your team at basket ball. All Brighton is laughing about it yet.”

“Never get cross over accidents. Couldn’t help it if Terry wasn’t fit. How about the game before that and the score? Eh?” Richards’ smile broadened.

“Well, was I sore?” Stapley challenged.

“Like a hen after a bath. You couldn’t see anything but red. The same at the class relay runs and—”

“I’d hate to say that you and the truth are total strangers,” Stapley said, quickly.

“Oh, let her go. I consider the source, as the man said when the donkey kicked him, ‘The critter didn’t know any bet—.’ Now, what’s the matter?”

The boy by the window had suddenly made a sudden downward motion with one hand and held a finger of the other to his lips, looking most mysterious. He had previously chanced to lean far forward, a position which he now maintained for a moment; then he flopped down against the seat back, quickly taking a pencil and a scrap of paper from his pocket and beginning to write. In another minute Richards was scanning what had been written:

The younger lad at once did as requested, glancing at the two men in the seat ahead, who were in earnest conversation, one, evidently under some excitement, talking quite loudly. He seemed not to think his voice carried so far above the rumble of a railroad train, or else they both considered as naught the chance that anyone might understand the language they were speaking. That the two were foreigners there could be no doubt; the full whiskered face of one, and the bent, thin lips of the other denoted, beyond power of words, the egotistical, would-be-dominating Prussian blood. It was an argument over ways and means that caused the bearded fellow to become so vehement.

The lad, understanding conversational German fairly well because of his persistent practice at school and the influence of a nurse he had when small, caught at first but a few words from the whiskered foreigner; then, when the smooth-faced man began speaking at length in a voice that could not be plainly heard the boy quickly carried out the suggestion of his companion.

Donald Richards took real enjoyment in doing this, and to Clement Stapley it was an ordeal to accept it without showing more than a grimace of protest. The two lads had long been far from friendly. They hailed from the same town, Lofton, perched well up in the foothills of the Red Deer Mountains, and they had ever been rivals, since early boyhood, in games, contests of skill, popularity among their fellows. Clement was the only child of the great man of the town, the senior Stapley being president of mills that made the place a spot of some importance on the map. Donald was one of five sons of the leading physician in the town and, having to paddle his own canoe against a more active competition, he had naturally become more self-reliant and shrewd than the half-spoiled son of the rich man.

When the two entered Brighton they were not admitted to the same classes, for Don had advanced beyond Clem in learning, even though younger, but they engaged in contests of skill and strength, and both become partial leaders of cliques such as naturally form within classes, and possessed the esprit de corps that is always uppermost among youths. Clem, tall and manly, with a dignity of manner and the prestige of his father’s wealth and standing back of him, drew a certain crowd of followers in the institution, while Don, active in both brain and muscle far beyond his years and possessing a born air of leadership, had admirers everywhere. Naturally, as with the analytical minds of youths being trained to compare and classify, the relative merits of the two boys were weighed and counted in such a manner as to wave still harder the red flag of bitter competition until never a kind word passed between them, but always repartee, often with rancor, once or twice in such anger that they almost came to blows.

Now, in the Christmas holidays of 1917–18, the students of old Brighton, one and all, were departing for their homes. Chancing to go a little late, Don and Clem found themselves in the same train with but one unoccupied seat and at once the old-time banter began, with a question from Don relative to a subject uppermost in the minds of the youth of the United States: Was Clem going to enlist, and if not, why not? If the interruption occasioned by the two men in front of the boys had not occurred, there might have been another serious quarrel.