er mine."

In the past few weeks Marta Clark and Bettina were beginning to feel a
deep interest in each other. This was but natural, for although they
were unlike in character they had many tastes in common. Marta was quick
and passionate, while Bettina was apt to appear almost too serene and
self-controlled. Yet they both cared for books, for human beauty and the
beauty of the great outdoors.

During the few moments the girls were talking the fog had been closing
in more thickly about them until it was only possible to see the road a
few yards away through a cloak of mist.

At this instant they distinctly heard the noise of an approaching motor
car.

Mrs. Richard Burton, better known to the world as the famous actress,
Polly O'Neill Burton, and guardian to the group of Sunrise Hill Camp
Fire girls, had chosen to make the journey down the California coast in
her automobile.

This afternoon her sister, Mrs. Webster, her nephew, Billy Webster, Vera
Lagerloff and the maid, Marie, were traveling with her.

The plan had been that the Camp Fire girls should start on their riding
trip several hours ahead and that they meet later and camp for the night
at some agreeable place along their journey.

Marta and Bettina ran forward, intending to stop the approaching car.
Both girls were thinking that the car was moving much more swiftly than
usual.

Almost immediately they saw that the automobile coming toward them was
not Mrs. Burton's, but a small khaki-colored roadster driven by a United
States officer with another soldier on the seat beside him.

They were going along at full speed as if they were carrying information
of great importance.

Then suddenly, without Marta or Bettina recognizing the cause, the car
swerved, made a wide detour and quickly overturned. A few seconds later
when the two girls, hoping to be of service, had reached the car, the
young United States officer was crawling slowly out from beneath the
wreck.

He tried to stand up and to smile reassuringly at Bettina, who chanced
to be ahead, but the next moment if she had not put out her arm to
steady him he would have fallen.

A little while after he was sitting unheroically amid the dust of the
roadside, smiling somewhat quizzically up at his rescuer.

"I don't believe I am seriously hurt," he remarked cheerfully, "but as I
know you are patriotic and would like to try your first-aid remedies
upon me, please go ahead. I am Lieutenant Carson and a