sector—d'you know that?"

"I don't know why."

"Don't get rattled easy—that's what I heard."

This was gratifying if it was true. Tom had not known why he had been sent so far and he had wondered.

Presently a Signal Corps captain came out of Headquarters, spoke briefly with two officers who were near the big wire spool, and then turned toward the bench on which Tom was sitting. His neighbors arose and saluted and he did the same.

"Never been under fire, I suppose?" said the captain, addressing Tom to his great surprise.

"Not before the lines, I haven't. The machine I had before this one was knocked all out of shape by a shell. I was riding from Toul to——"

"All right," interrupted the captain somewhat impatiently. Tom was used to being interrupted in the midst of his sometimes rambling answers. He could never learn the good military rule of being brief and explicit. "How do you feel about going over the top? You don't have to."

"It's just what I was thinking about," said 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: