PETER STARKLEY got home to Beaver Dam for New Year's Day on a six days' pass. Jim Hammond had also tried to get a pass, but he had failed. Peter found his homesickness increased by those six days; but he made every effort to hide his emotions. He talked bravely of his duties and his comrades, and especially of Dave Hammer. He said nothing about Jim Hammond except when questioned, and then as little as possible.

He polished his buttons and badges every morning and rolled his putties as if for parade. The smartness of his carriage gave a distinction even to the unlovely khaki service uniform of a British noncommissioned officer. He looked like a guardsman and felt like a schoolboy who dreaded the approaching term. He haunted the barns and stables of the home farm and of his own place and tramped the snow-laden woods and blanketed fields. In spite of his efforts to think only of the harsh and foreign task before him, he dreamed of clearings here and crops there. The keen, kindly eyes of his parents saw through to his heart.

One day of the six he spent in the village of Stanley. He called first at Hammond's store, where he tried to give Mr. Hammond the impression that he had dropped in casually, but as he had nothing to sell and did not wish to buy anything he failed to hoodwink the storekeeper. Mr. Hammond was cordial, but seemed worried.

He complimented Peter on his promotion and his soldierly appearance.

"Glad you got home," he said. "Wish Jim could have come along with you, but he writes as how they won't give him a pass. Seems to me it ain't more than only fair to let all the boys come home for Christmas or New Year's."

"Then there wouldn't be any one left to carry on," said Peter. "They've fixed it so that those who have been longest on the job get the first passes; but I guess every one will get home for a few days before we sail."

"Jim says the training—the drill and all that—is mighty hard," continued Mr. Hammond.

"Some find it so, and some don't," replied Peter awkwardly. "I guess it's what you might call a matter of taste."

"Like enough," said the storekeeper, scratching his chin. "It's a matter of taste—and not to Jim's taste, that's sure."

Peter felt relieved to see that Mr. Hammond seemed to understand the case. He was about to elaborate on the subject of military training when a middle-aged man wearing a bowler hat and a fur-lined overcoat turned from the counter. He had a square, clean-shaven face and very bright and active black eyes.

"Excuse me, corporal," the stranger said, "but may I horn in and inquire what you think of it yourself?"

"You can ask if you want to, Mr. Sill," said Mr. Hammond, "but you won't hear any kick out of Peter Starkley, whether he likes it or not."

"It's easier than working in the woods, either chopping or teaming," said Peter pleasantly, "and I'll bet a dollar it is a sight easier than the real fighting will be."

"That's the way to look at it, corporal," said the stranger. "I guess that in a war like this a man has to make up his mind to take the fun and the ferocity, the music and the mud, and the pie and the pain, just as they come."

"I guess so," said Peter.

The stranger shook his hand cordially and just before he turned away remarked, "Maybe you and I will meet again sooner than you expect."

"Who is he, and what's he driving at?" asked Peter, when the stranger had left the store.

"He is a Yank, and a traveler for Maddock & Co. of St. John, and his name is Hiram Sill—but I don't know what he is driving at any more than you do," replied Mr. Hammond.

The storekeeper invited Peter to call round at the house and to stay to dinner and for as long as he liked afterwards. Peter accepted the invitation. The Hammond house stood beside the store, but farther back from the road. It was white and big, with a veranda in front of it, a row of leafless maples, a snowdrifted lawn and a picket fence. Vivia Hammond opened the door to his ring. From behind the curtain of the parlor window she had seen him approach.

At dinner Peter talked more than was usual with him; something in the way the girl listened to him inspired him to conversation. At two o'clock he accompanied her to the river and skated with her. They had such parts of the river as were not drifted with snow to themselves, except for two little boys. The little boys, interested in Peter as a military man, kept them constantly in sight. Peter felt decidedly hostile toward those harmless boys, but he was too shy to mention it to Vivia. He was delighted and astonished when she turned upon them at last and said:

"Billy Brandon, you and Jack had better take off your skates and go home."

"I guess we got as much right as anybody on this here river," replied Billy Brandon, but there was a lack of conviction in his voice.

"You were both in bed with grippe only last week," Vivia retorted; "but I'll call in at your house and ask your mother about it on my way up the hill."

The little boys had nothing to say to that. They maintained a casual air, skated in circles and figures for a few minutes and then went home. For ten minutes after that the corporal and the girl skated in an electrical silence, looking everywhere except at each other. Then Peter ventured a slanting glance across his left shoulder at her little fur-cuddled face. Their eyes met.

"Poor Mrs. Brandon can't manage those boys," she said. "But they are very good boys, really. They do everything I tell them."

"Why shouldn't they? But I'm glad they're gone, anyway," he replied, in a voice that seemed to be tangled and strangled in the collar of his greatcoat.

When Vivia and Peter returned to the house the eastern sky was eggshell green and the west, low along the black forests, as red as the draft of a stove. Their conversation had never fully recovered after the incident of the two little boys. Wonderful and amazing thoughts and emotions churned round in Peter's head and heart, but he did not venture to give voice to them. They bewildered him. He stayed to tea and at that comfortable meal Mr. and Mrs. Hammond did the talking. Vivia and Peter looked at each other only shyly as if they were afraid of what they might see in each other's eyes.

At last Peter went to the barn and harnessed the mare. Then he returned to the house to say good night to the ladies. That accomplished, Vivia accompanied him to the front door. Beyond the front door, as a protection against icy winds and drifting snow, was the winter porch—not much bigger than a sentry box. Stepping across the threshold, from the warm hall into the porch, Peter turned and clutched and held the girl's hand across the threshold. The tumult of his heart flooded up and smothered the fear in his brain.

"I never spent such a happy day in all my life," he said.

Vivia said nothing. And then the mischief got into the elbow of the corporal's right arm. It twitched; and, since his right hand still clasped Vivia's hand, the girl was jerked, with a little skip, right out of the hall and into the boxlike porch.

Two seconds later Peter pulled open the porch door and dashed into the frosty night. He jumped into the pung, and away went the mare as if something of her master's madness had been communicated to her. The corporal had kissed Vivia!

Peter returned to his battalion two days later. In St. John he found everything much as usual. Hammer was as brisk and soldierly as ever, but Jim Hammond was more sulky than before. Peter considered the battalion with a new interest. Life, even away from Beaver Dam, seemed more worth while, and he went at his work with a jump. He wrote twice a week to Vivia, spending hours in the construction of each letter and yet always leaving out the things that he wanted most to write. The girl's replies were the results of a similar literary method.

The training of the battalion went on, indoors and out, day after day. In March, Jim Hammond went home for six days. By that time he was known throughout the battalion as a confirmed sulker. The six days passed; the seventh day came and went without sight or news of him, and then the adjutant wired to Mr. Hammond. No reply came from the storekeeper. Lieut. Scammell questioned Peter about the family. Peter told what he knew—that the Hammonds were fine people, that one son was an officer already in England, and that the father was an honest and patriotic citizen. So another wire was sent from the orderly room. That, like the first, failed to produce results.

The adjutant, Capt. Long, then sent for Peter. This officer was not much more than five feet high, despite the name of his fathers, and was built in proportion. It tickled the humor of the men to see such a little fellow chase ten hundred bigger fellows round from morning until night.

"You are to go upriver and find out why Private Hammond has not returned to duty," said the captain.

"Yes, sir," said Peter.

"Inform me by wire," continued the captain. "Use your brains. I am sending you alone, because I want to give Hammond a chance for the sake of his brother overseas. Here are your pass, your railway warrant and a chit for the paymaster. That's all, Corp. Starkley."

Peter saluted and retired. He reached Fredericton that night and the home village of Jim Hammond by noon of the next day. He went straight to the store, where Mr. Hammond greeted him with astonishment. Peter saw no sign of Jim.

"I didn't expect to see you back so soon," said Mr. Hammond.

"I got a chance, so I took it," replied Peter. "How's all the family?"

The storekeeper smiled. "The womenfolk are well," he said.

Peter saw that he had come suddenly to the point where he must exercise all the tact he possessed. He felt keenly embarrassed.

"Did you get a telegram?" he asked.

"No. Did you wire us you were coming?"

"Not that, exactly. You see, it was like this, Mr. Hammond: when Jim didn't get back the day he was due the adjutant sent you a wire, and when he didn't get an answer he sent another—and when you didn't reply to that he detailed me to come along and see what was wrong."

The storekeeper stared at him. "I never got any telegram. Jim came home on two weeks' furlough, and he has five days of it left. You and your adjutant must be crazy."

"Two weeks," repeated Peter. "It was six days he got."

"Six days! Are you sure of that, Peter Starkley?"

"As sure as that's my name, Mr. Hammond. And the adjutant sent you two telegrams, asking why Jim didn't return to duty when his pass was up—and he didn't get any answer. If you didn't get one or other of those telegrams, then there is something wrong somewhere."

Mr. Hammond's face clouded. "I didn't get any wire, Peter—and Jim went away day before yesterday, to visit some friends," he said.

They eyed each other in silence for a little while; both were bitterly embarrassed, and the storekeeper was numbed with shame.

"I'll go for him," he said. "If I fetch him to you here, will you promise to—to keep the truth of it quiet, Peter—from his mother and sister and the folk about here?"

"I'll do the best I can," promised the corporal, "but not for Jim's sake, mind you, Mr. Hammond. Capt. Long is for giving him a chance because of his brother, Pat, over on Salisbury Plain—and that's why he sent me alone, instead of sending a sergeant with an escort."

"I'll go fetch him, Peter," said the other, in a shaking voice. "You go along to Beaver Dam and come back to-morrow—to see Vivia. When Jim and I turn up you meet him just like it was by chance. Keep your mouth shut, Peter. Not a word to a living soul about his only having six days. He's not well, and that's the truth."

A dull anger was awake in Peter by this time.

"Something the matter with his feet," he said and left the store.

Here he was, told to be tactful by Capt. Long and to keep his mouth shut by Mr. Hammond, all on account of a sulky, lazy, bad-tempered fellow who had been a disgrace to the battalion since the day he joined it. And not a word about stopping for dinner!

He crossed the road to the hotel, made arrangements to be driven out to Beaver Dam and then ate a lonely dinner. He thought of Vivia Hammond only a few yards away from him, yet unconscious of his proximity—and he wanted to punch the head of her brother Jim. He drove away from the hotel up the long hill without venturing a glance at the windows of the big white house on the other side of the road.

The family at Beaver Dam accepted his visit without question. No mention was made of Jim Hammond that night. Peter was up and out early the next morning, lending a hand with the feeding and milking.

After breakfast he and Dick went over to his own place to have a look at his house and barns.

"Frank Sacobie came home last week," said Dick. "He's been out to see us twice. He wants to enlist in your outfit, but I am trying to hold him off till next year so's we can go over together."

"You babies had better keep your bibs on a few years longer," said Peter. "I guess there will be lots of time for all of you to fight in this war without forcing yourselves under glass."

They rounded a spur of spruces and saw Sacobie approaching on snowshoes across the white meadows. He had grown taller and deeper in the chest since Peter had last seen him. The greeting was cordial but not wordy. Sacobie turned and accompanied them.

"I see Jim Hammond yesterday, out Pike Settlement way," he said.

"That so?" returned Peter, trying to seem uninterested.

"No uniform on, neither, and drinkin' some," continued Sacobie. "Says he's got his discharge from that outfit because it ain't reckoned as first-class and has been asked to be an officer in another outfit."

Then Peter forgot his instructions. Jim Hammond too good for the 26th battalion! Jim Hammond offered a commission! His indignant heart sent his blood racing through him.

"He's a liar!" he cried. "Yes, and a deserter, too, by thunder!"

Dick was astonished, but Frank Sacobie received the information calmly, without so much as a flicker of the eyelids.

"I think that all the time I listen to him," he said. "I figger to get his job, anyway, if he lie or tell the truth. I go down to-morrow, Peter, and you tell the colonel how I make a darn sight better soldier than Jim Hammond."

Peter gripped the others each by an arm.

"I shouldn't have said that," he cautioned them. "Forget it! You boys have got to keep it under your hats, but I guess it's up to me to take a jog out Pike Settlement way. If you boys say a word about it, you get in wrong with me and you get me in wrong with a whole heap of folks."

They turned and went back to Beaver Dam. There they hitched the mares to the big red pung and stowed in their blankets and half a bag of oats.

"I can't tell you where I'm going or what for, but only that it is a military duty," said Peter in answer to the questions of the family.

He took Dick and Frank Sacobie with him. Once they got beyond the outskirts of the home settlement they found heavy sledding. At noon they halted, blanketed and baited the mares, boiled the kettle and lunched. The wide, white roadway before them, winding between walls of green-black spruces and gray maples, was marked with only the tracks of one pair of horses and one pair of sled runners—evidently made the day before. Peter guessed them to be those of Mr. Hammond's team, but he said nothing about that to his companions.

Here and there they passed drifted clearings and little houses sending blue feathers of smoke into the bright air. They came to places where the team that had passed the previous day had been stuck in the drifts and laboriously dug out.

They were within two miles of the settlement, between heavy woods fronted with tangled alders, when the cracking whang! of exploding cordite sounded in the underbrush. The mares plunged, then stood. The reins slipped from Peter's mittened hands.

"I'm hit, boys!" he said and then sagged over across Dick's knees.

"'I'M HIT, BOYS!' HE SAID."