RAIN, rain, rain.

Not the puny patter of a slow and drizzling and short-lived storm, nor the gusty petulance of an April shower, but a steady, sullen inundation that had set in more than a week before.

For days and nights it had been nothing but a steady downpour, and from all appearances and barometric indications for days more it would continue to be nothing else.

It was as desolate a place and as gloomy a season as one could imagine, and the abominable weather was but adding to the depression of the thousands of sturdy American youths who for weeks had loitered in what seemed to them a useless and nerve-racking inactivity in a vast water-logged section of France, west of St. Mihiel, almost south of battle-scarred Verdun.

Now and then as the hours wore on toward late afternoon and early darkness, a rising wind seemed to whine something of an echo to the mental misery of those in the khaki-clad armies thus held as on a leash. Or was it more as a dismal-toned challenge to them as they wallowed through the slippery mud, unloading and distributing food, supplies, ammunition from the seemingly never-ending caravan of drab-colored motor trucks which hour after hour and day after day like the rain itself streamed in seemingly from nowhere to the veritable swamp in which the cream of American young manhood waded—and waited.

Tom Walton, despite himself, was thinking of Brighton and the pleasant school-days there, as, just relieved from a monotonous sentry duty, he headed toward the company kitchen where he knew his good friend Harper would hand him out a cup of steaming coffee to warm his blood and loosen his stiffened bones.

Often with Harper, and with Ollie Ogden, too, Tom Walton had played football on a sometimes soggy field at Brighton, but never, he was repeating to himself bitterly, had it been anything like this.

But pessimism or drooping spirits cannot for long grip a lad in perfect health and possessed of the knowledge that eventually, soon or late, and probably at no far distant date, he has a great mission to perform. And so, with the first thoughts of good old Brighton, the mood of Tom Walton began to change, even the weather did not seem quite so dreary, the outlook not so glum.

Like many of their pals from the famous school, these three had gone into the same service together—fighting doughboys, if you please—and at their own request had been directly associated in the same unit from the first hour that they went into training. And it had at all times been a happy trio, for in their days at school they had been inseparable pals.

Just at present Harper, by grace of his culinary capabilities, was doing emergency duty in the kitchen because of the temporary illness of one of the regular cooks, but this was more of an advantage than a hardship to his two friends, as a fat sandwich or a couple of hot doughnuts between meals often bore substantial testimony.

Tom Walton was thinking of these things when suddenly he was brought back to the realities of life by a loudly shouted “Hi, there!” accompanied by a clatter which sounded like a section of the German army advancing at a tremendous pace.

It was all so sudden, the ground so treacherously slippery, that Tom scarcely had attempted to turn when something of tremendous weight and momentum struck him a glancing blow and he went sprawling face downward in the muck, his mackinaw canopying out over him like a miniature dog-tent.

Before he could rise and scrape enough of the mud from his eyes to see what was going on, three or four men went galloping by him, one shouting warnings and futile commands, another grunting under the stress of his labors, a third laughing jerkily but uproariously.

In shocked surprise and disgusted recognition, Tom, rising monkey-like to all-fours, took in the situation in a single sour glance.

He had been bowled over by Maud, the company mule!

Maud, evidently, was on another privately-conducted tour of the works—a favorite diversion, by the way—and Maud was objecting strenuously to any curtailment of her pastime, especially in the shape of human company. It was the fourth time in three days that Maud had broken tether, and, so to speak, pulled stakes for another part of Europe—and always somebody got hurt.

Tom reflected with some satisfaction that at least he had come off better than “Buck” Granger, who in a pursuit of the escaped Maud the preceding day had attempted a flying flank attack just as Maud perceptibly increased her speed and let fly with her heels. Buck’s pained expression later, when the surgeon had finished plastering and bandaging him up, was: “The ornery cuss caved two of my slats.”

“That mule will get killed some day,” Tom muttered to himself, still scraping mud from face and garments. “Fellow won’t stand for this sort of stuff all the time. I believe she’s a German spy anyway, trying to kill off decent Americans the way she does.”

And he wended his way sorely toward Harper and the kitchen, while afar off he could hear the continued cry of the hunt as Maud, the incorrigible, cavorted around in the mud, defying sentries, dodging pursuers, having generally what Maud seemed to regard as an all-round good time.

“Any news?” he asked, as Harper handed him the cup of hot coffee for which he had come.

Harper looked off to the northward for a moment before he answered. Not that he could see anything but hundreds upon hundreds of men of all branches of the American arms, but he seemed to be conjuring a dismal picture in his imagination as he stood there in silence, seeming not to have heard the question.

“Well, are you in a trance?” Tom demanded impatiently.

“No,” Harper answered in a peculiar tone, “but I’m wondering just how much longer we’re going to be kept here this way. Of course, we shouldn’t complain or question, but I guess we all feel the same way about it. We’re all anxious to ‘go in,’ and I don’t think it ought to be much longer now.”

“What do you mean? What have you heard?” Tom asked, excitedly.

“It’s not what I have heard, for that hasn’t been very much. It’s what I have seen, what you have seen, what every man here has seen that makes me feel that the big clash of the war is soon to come, and that we will have a chance to be in it. The concentration of the entire First American Army in this sector isn’t for the purpose of giving us a vacation, and after all I guess we can best show our patriotism and loyalty right now by being ready for any emergency, rather than grumbling because Foch and Pershing haven’t asked us out to lunch to get our opinion on their plans.”

“Righto!” exclaimed Tom, with just that emphasis upon the word which the English Tommies had taught the Yanks.

“Yes,” continued Harper, “I’m satisfied that we are down for a big part on the program. Look what our men have been doing further north since June 11th, when they captured Belleau Wood and took three hundred prisoners.

“And just review all of that and last month. On June 19th our men crossed the Marne, near ChÂteau-Thierry. On June 29th it was a raid on Montdidier. July 2nd they captured Vaux. On the glorious 4th word came of American success in the Vosges. A month later Fismes was taken, and now—look at this.”

Harper liked nothing better than to spring a surprise—a happy surprise—on his friends. He pulled from under his blouse a late copy of “Stars and Stripes,” the official newspaper of the American Expeditionary forces. It was dated September 3rd, and across the first page, under bold, inspiring headlines, was the stirring story of the capture of the plain of Juvigny, north of Soissons.

With nothing of boastfulness about it, it told in vigorous language of the heroic valor of the American troops; how, behind a creep-barrage, they had steadily advanced until, with a final lifting of the artillery screen, the men, singing, shouting, cheering, advanced into open battle with the Hun hosts.

It was a story to stir the blood of any patriotic American, particularly one who was himself under arms and only awaiting the opportunity to perform like service in behalf of his country and humanity.

Tom Walton read it to the last word before he spoke.

“I think you’re right,” he said, “it won’t be long now until we, also, will be ‘going in’.”

“What else could all this mean?” was Harper’s way of reply. His arm swept the whole horizon, north, westward, south, and then up toward the east. “Haven’t you noticed the immense numbers of the Engineering Corps that are being brought up? Thousands upon thousands of them.”

“And the truck trains,” Tom supplemented. “Buck Granger told me last night that he heard a captain and a lieutenant talking, and how many of those trucks do you think they said already are here?”

“Don’t know. Couldn’t even guess. How many?”

“More than three thousand, and they’re still coming in by scores every hour.”

“It means business,” Harper assented, nodding his head vigorously. “It means business, and on a tremendous scale. Why, just this morning—”

But just at that moment their conversation was interrupted. Their school chum and army pal, Ollie Ogden, burst in upon them, wrathful to the point of pitched battle, and at the time too breathless to speak.

“Have you seen—,” he demanded, and then gasped for another breath. “Have you seen—.”

“Yes,” ventured Tom, in friendly mockery, winking at Harper, “We’ve seen a lot. But just what do you refer to?”

“MAUD!” almost shrieked the angered Ollie. “Have you seen that gol darned mule?”

George Harper and Tom Walton went into gales of uncontrollable laughter. Had they seen Maud? They sure had. Harper saw her on her way—whither it led she refused to say—and Tom had encountered her on the journey.

“Well, what are you two standing there guffawing about?” Ollie demanded, his rage in no way abated by the evident amusement of his friends. “You hee-haw like that beast itself.”

This was too much for Harper, and with his arms folded across his stomach he doubled up like a jack knife in his mirth. But his position was rather unfortunate. He had his back to, and was directly in front of, the outraged Ollie, who hauled off and gave Harper his boot with a force that straightway brought him upright.

“Look here,” he ejaculated in pained surprise.

“Look here!” repeated Ollie. “I’ve looked here, I’ve looked there, I’ve looked all over this blamed camp for that ornery offspring of Satan. I guess you fellow’s would like to see me get a couple of days in the guard for letting her get away.”

“Could anybody ever keep her when she made up her mind to go?” Tom asked, now laughing as well at Harper as at Ogden.

“Well, I couldn’t, anyway, and it’s not my fault,” Ollie asserted. “Just because a fellow’s doing stable police he can’t be personal valet to a beast like that all day. She—he—say, what is a mule, anyway? A he or a she?”

“A mule is what America was before Germany tested her too far,” Harper advised him.

“What do you mean?” asked Ollie, with a blank look.

“Neutral.”

“Oh, no. You’ve got Maud wrong. She’s never neutral. She’s belligerent all the time.”

Just then there was a wild whoop of mixed masculine voices, punctuated with a loud hee-haw, and Ollie dashed off to join a growing group of khaki-clad runners in pursuit of the elusive Maud.

But the mule’s present freedom was destined for an early and ignominious end. She hadn’t counted upon the slipperiness of the soggy mud. She was fanning the air with her two hind legs when the two in front went from under. She came down suddenly upon her side, and with a heavy grunt.

In that instant two of the leaders of the chase were upon her. The struggle that ensued was spectacular in the extreme. The next two men to arrive grabbed the two fore feet.

“A rope, a rope!” they cried in unison, but none dared go near, or even approach, Maud’s rapid-fire hind legs which were kicking out frantically in every direction.

But the men hung on—two at her fore legs and half a dozen across the body—and in a few minutes more another breathless doughboy arrived with the needed rope.

The struggle continued, but finally Maud’s capture was made complete. A slip-noose was made upon her neck; half a dozen huskies took death grips upon the other end; the signal was given, and all at once those who were grappling with her jumped to a safe distance.

Maud gave one disgusted glance around, and then with a mighty effort rose to her four feet and her full dignity. The six men gave a quick tug at the rope around her neck.

Wow! The response was immediate and expressive. Maud’s heels cut the air and she made a bee-line for her captors. They wildly scrambled to escape the onslaught, but bravely held to the rope. The mule went crashing by, and the slack line began to be taken up. With a sudden jerk it became taut, and the six men, feet outspread before them, but unable to take a grip upon the slippery mud, began a wild and involuntary ride in the rear of the cavorting Maud.

Across camp they took their undignified way, as hundreds of onlookers shouted in laughter, or made pretentious but ineffective efforts by the vigorous waving of arms and hats to stop the mule and the mud-bespattered retinue that went flying in her wake. But even Maud could not for long endure the strangulation that the dead weight of six men placed upon her windpipe, and so, after having traversed fully half a mile, she came to a halt that was as abrupt as had been the original beginning of her flight.

A strategist at all times, Maud knew by long experience how to accept defeat and capture. It was with a lamb-like docility that unfailingly won her immunity from the punishment which she so richly deserved.

But even Maud’s caprice, painful as it had been to a few, with the amusement it had provided all the others, was forgotten a few moments later in a rumor that ran the gamut of the square miles of armed camp with greater speed than the fastest mule ever could hope to attain.

“Buck” Granger, who was just wandering from a remote spot where he had dropped off in the pursuit, first brought the news to Tom Walton, Ollie Ogden and Harper.

“Listen!” he said, gathering them about him as though it was some secret not yet told to another soul. “Pershing is due to arrive here tomorrow morning.”

Pershing coming! The supreme commander of all the American forces in Europe! “Black Jack” Pershing, adored alike by the men under him and those at home! Coming into the American sector at that point! It could mean but one thing. Their time to show their mettle was near at hand.

The rumor ran back and forth through the vast area that the advance might be made within the next twenty-four hours. None could confirm it, of course. None wanted to deny it. All were on the tip-toe of expectancy.

No longer were there lingering doubts. It was perfectly clear and assured now that for a vast project, indeed, had all of these great preparations been made.