ay, and after four or five days Frank started to
walk across the prairie to the School of Fire.

Just before he reached the bridge crossing the glen between the New Post
and the School, he heard a joyful whoop and there was Bill running to
meet him.

"Hey there!" called Bill, as soon as he could possibly make himself
heard. "I was just starting over to see you."

"Come on back!" grinned Frank. "I am at home this morning."

"Not as much as I am," answered his friend. "Gee, it has been a long
week! Did you ever see such a storm?"

"Oklahoma can beat that any time she wants to," boasted Frank. "That was
just a _little_ one. You ought to see a real blizzard or 'sly coon' as
we call the cyclones. They are bad medicine, as the Indians say."

"This was big enough to start with," said Bill. "I thought the Swallow
was going to fly away. And dad's big car _reeled_ around. And you should
have seen our bath tub! It was full of sand."

"Clear up to the top?" asked Frank teasingly.

"There was a good inch in it," retorted Bill, "and it looks to me as
though that was a good deal of sand to trickle through the windows when
they all have screens and were closed besides."

"It surely does get in," granted Frank. "Hello, there comes Lee! Where
is he going, I wonder, without his fatigue suit on?"

"I suppose you mean those overall things he works in, don't you?" said
Bill. "I know that much now. Lee doesn't wear them any more. He was so
crazy over mother and so good to her and to me that dad got him
transferred to his Battery, and now he is our orderly."

"How did he manage to do that?" said Frank.

"Why, there was some fellow who wanted to leave the guns and work around
the quarters as janitor. They have an idea that it is an easy job. So
dad let him make the exchange, and I can tell you we were all about as
pleased as we could be."

"Good work!" commended Frank, but without enthusiasm. He did not want
Bill to have the fun of having Lee for orderly. He had been trying to
think up some scheme whereby the soldier would be sent over to fill that
position with his own father.

"Lee is a peach," said Bill warmly. "Look what he made me."

He fished in his pocket and drew forth a length of chain. The small,
delicate links were carved from a single piece of wood, and at the end,
like an ornamentation, hung a carved cage in which rolled a little
wooden ball. It was all very curious and delicate.

"My, but that's a peach," said F