Once again along the farm road came Don’s ambulance. It reached the old farm house and stopped. He called loudly for Billy Mearns. There was no answer and Don rose in his seat to go and look for his pal, and to witness the good work he had done here. Always alert, he glanced about. He had not met the other Red Cross ambulance again. Was it still in the low ground by the thicket?

It was, and the men there were moving about. Don stood watching them for a moment. He saw a slender figure, one that he surely recognized as that of Billy Mearns, crossing the field toward the thicket. He saw two men within the clump and when Billy reached the bushes and passed among them Don saw one of the men lift his arm as if he were pointing.

Then, for an instant, Don’s heart seemed to stand still, for he saw the other man who had been in the clump of bushes raise his arm, holding some sort of weapon and strike the slender figure down.

The army ambulance at this moment was also coming along the farm house lane. The driver and helper had been watching the German observation balloon and its strange movements. When they reached the high knoll they, too, stopped to see if this might mean signaling to the enemy. The American driver’s helper was a poilu who had been wounded at the first battle of the Marne in 1914 and long experience in the ways of the Huns had taught him to be suspicious of everything unusual. He knew that the means of communication between a captive balloon and the divisional commander was by telephone and such signaling as this must be to those that a wire could not reach. In broken English he shouted excitedly:

“Behold! Zat ess eet, in ze booshes zere, over ze field! Puff, puff, puff; behold! We have heem, m’sieu’! An we capture heem now purty queek; right off, eh?”

The Yank was about to send the car forward again when his companion stopped him with another exclamation which made it worth while pausing a moment longer for a better view.

“Ha, look! Zee balloon, eet seegnal ze enemy, m’sieu’! Ha, he come! He come queek; he go fast! Ha! Somesing doing now!” The Frenchman had caught this last expression from his American friend. “An eet ees ze Croix Rouge car, ze other wan. He but young boy. An’ he fire; ha, he too has—what you say? catched on to ze seegnalers. But, m’sieu’, will not they reseest heem?”

The two were on their feet now, gazing with all eyes, excited. So they remained for some time—the Yank with clenched fists, the poilu rubbing his hands together. Then, as if at a signal, they both dropped into their seats and the ambulance rushed again along the by-way. Halt an hour later, with but one wounded man and a Red Cross driver, unhurt, sitting beside him, the army ambulance drew up to the evacuation hospital tent. In answer to the curt query of the Major, the driver excused himself for bringing in only one man.

“You see, sir, we thought it was no more than fair, after what they had both done—discovered those Heinies inside our lines signaling to the boche balloon and it signaling back to them. This fellow inside that got his must have landed on ’em first, afoot, and they did him up. Then the young chap, he went ’em one better and I never seen a prettier fight. We seen it from the little hill.”

“Did the German spies get away?” asked the surgeon.

“Only one did, and I think he’ll get stopped. They must have seen it from the woods. He made a run fer his car and jumped into it; it’s the speediest thing ever, I reckon. He was out of sight quicker’n a scared cootie, going for the woods. But the kid he got the other one; the one, he says, that hit the pink-cheeked lad.”

“How did he get him?”

“Shot him. Let him have it like Pete the Plugger would ’a’ done. Yes, sir! The kid’s car run right along to about fifty yards of the bushes where they was hid and the kid jumped out; right off they began shootin’ at him and he pulls a gun out of his Red Cross car as calm and as deliberate as if he was after prairie chicken and knowed he was goin’ to get ’em, and commenced shootin’. They skinned for their car and one of ’em gets in and gets her goin’, but the other one he turns round to take another shot at the kid who was kneelin’ down and lettin’ ’em have it proper and the feller keels over and the one in the car he skids off. I reckon the kid he jest about filled that there car full of lead, but the feller he got away, though if he wasn’t hurt it’s a wonder!”

“The lad is sure one scrapper, eh?” The surgeon was much tickled and slapped his leg at the realistic narrative of the ambulancier.

“He is, Major; all of that!” continued the soldier. “For a kid, or for a veteran, for that matter, he is some boy with a gun! And he showed pluck, too, when we got there. You see, we seen and heard them Hun gas shells comin’ over—that there Hun balloon give the range, I reckon—and we heard the gongs, too, but we reckoned the kid, bein’ so excited over the fight, didn’t get on to it, so the only thing to do was to get there right quick and you bet we did! Here was this one dead Hun with the Red Cross on his sleeve—the feller that the kid shot—and in the bushes was the kid bendin’ over the feller what them Huns had knocked in the head, and the gas from two busted shells a sneakin’ up on ’em lively. We had on our masks and we started to grab him and get him away. He hadn’t saw us ner heard us come and he turned round on me with a drawed pistol, so’s I thought it was all off sure. But the kid knowed us and didn’t shoot. We yelled ‘gas’ at him and what did he do? Run to his car off there and get his mask? Never a bit of it! He jest sez to us: ‘help me with this feller to my car,’ he sez. ‘I’ve got two masks there, his’n and mine’ he sez. So I sez: ‘this way’s quicker; make tracks fer our car, young feller!’ and I picked up the insensible feller and run with him to our car and the kid follered, and we got away from the gas. The kid he begged us to get here quick, or his pal might die and so that’s why we come back with only one.”

“Well, all right; excused, of course,” said the Major.

“Now we’re off, back up there, Major, and we’ll try to make up fer—”

“It isn’t lost time, or it wouldn’t be if we could save that lad’s life. Well, anyway—but you’d better wait a moment and I’ll get the kid, as you call him—Richards—to go back with you and get his car.”

The chief entered the tent and wended his way quickly down the long aisle, between the rows of brown cots, many of which held wounded men, he stopped here and there for a word of encouragement, of advice, or to answer a question. Reaching the farther end he stood for a moment, looking down at a white-faced figure lying very inert beneath the blanket and at another sitting, with his face in his hands, beside the cot. A woman nurse, rather young, with wonderfully gentle eyes, passed softly and whispered to the Major.

“He feels it terribly; we don’t often see such grief, though he is not of the loud weeping kind.”

The Major nodded and, stooping forward, laid his hand on the shoulder of the figure in the chair.

“Come, Richards. No use sitting here; there is much to do; much. Getting away on duty will make you feel better.”

Don looked up with a face that was drawn with sorrow.

“But, Doctor, suppose he comes to and asks for me? You are sure that he can’t get well?”

The doctor assented by a nod. “He cannot recover,” was his brief remark, uttered more feelingly than usual with this man of long, hard experience. Then he added with his usual attention to duty on his mind:

“He may become conscious later on. I’ll let you know. After you get your car and bring in the next bunch you must run down to your base and report. They must assign you another helper. I have sent your description of the German signal man to headquarters and to the P. C. at the front of the woods section—I think they’ll get him. And I’ll send a note by you, telling what good work you did.”

With the idea uppermost that it was his first duty to play the part of a good soldier in the work he had enlisted to do, Don got up to join the army ambulance. Two hours later, in his own car and at its best speed, he was returning from the Red Cross base. The man beside him began to think himself most unlucky to have been assigned to duty with this dare-devil of a driver, who spoke hardly a word and seemed not to care if they were presently piled in a heap and both killed. Around, past and in between lorries, trucks, ambulances, big guns being hauled to the front and marching men they dashed. When the evacuation hospital was again reached the young driver left the car with but a word to the new man, requesting him to wait, and was gone a long half hour.

“He has asked for you,” said the nurse to Don. “His mind seems to be clear and he is not suffering, but the shock was too great. It has caused some immediate heart trouble and with the loss of blood—the Major can explain. Go right over and speak to the poor boy.”

Don did so, almost in despair, but he was determined not to show it. Billy must get well; if there was anything in his thinking so, then he must be given every chance. And so Don met his pal with a smile.

“Hello, Billy! Feeling better? Soon be all right, I—”

“No, no! Don, the—nurse told me all about it, what you did and what you did for me, too. Don—we—we have only known each other—how long, Don?”

“Why, three whole days, Billy. But we’ll know each other al—-”

“Listen, Don. I know. Don’t try to fool me. No use. West—I’m going—West. Pretty soon, too. A message, to my father and mother and brother, Don. Will you write it? I got the nurse to write this to introduce you to them, and to bid them good-bye. Then I only want you to write him a letter about me—a little. Can you tell them, Don, that I was not a coward—that I was not very much afraid that—I tried to do my duty? Don’t tell them a lie—but—but if you could truthfully say something like that it will please them. Do you understand?”

Don could not trust his voice, but he nodded his head with very evident determination and, unlike anything he had ever done before, placed his hand over that of Billy’s and held it. It was not a boylike act, but it seemed as though they were no longer boys, but creatures of profound and heart-stirring sentiment. The soft, droning voice of the dying youth ceased a little; then began again with halting, sometimes difficult speech.

“Father will be pleased, Don, and know he will do as I request. But you are not to open and read the note the nurse wrote for me. You told me, Don—it was the first day—that you would like to go to college when you get through Prep, but that your father could never afford it with so many other boys to raise and educate. But if someone who cared a lot for you, compelled you to accept the money, then you would, Don, wouldn’t you? Please, please, say yes, Don—if we have been friends. That’s good—good. Tell me, Don—what school do you go to—now—when—you go—at home?”

“Brighton.” Don just managed to pronounce the word.

“Don! Brighton! Oh—you didn’t tell me that before. Brighton—was my school, too, Don. Class of—1915. And you—Don—too! Well the good old school will have reason to be proud—of you!”

“Of you—of you, Billy!”

“Perhaps so, if—if I could have—lived—gone on doing things—tried to be—Don, ask the nurse to come here—or the—Major. I guess—I guess—”

The boy’s face had suddenly grown whiter, if that were possible, and a deathly pallor came over it. Don went quickly to do as Billy asked. The nurse came to the bedside of the young man. She bent over him for what seemed a long while—a minute or more. Then she turned to Don.

“Going,” she said. “He called your name again. Perhaps he can hear you.” The nurse made way.

“Billy, dear Billy, I—I’m here,” Don said, his lips close to his pal’s ear. A faint smile came over the patient’s face and then it became rigid. With a light heart Billy Mearns “went West.”