o and respects or whether he
gets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit to
black his boots--none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to do
what he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holiday
is wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know why
he dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some college
fiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though
he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in
his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank
the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace
high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet
my best belt on that."

This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what the
colonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayed
that he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself.

"He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flash
to think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonder
with the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets
'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on the
shoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they are
all crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuff
that will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pit
of their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessness
of it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always in
front. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do come
through though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guest
who had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehow
by the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had run
and the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to that
little fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and a
man can die but once."

The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence from
camp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together the
two went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and the
Holidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not to
write to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next day
whence