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ke inquiries in the other tents. He came back presently and reported the finding of another man who belonged to Ruthven's regiment and who knew him. So presently, when she was relieved from duty--the first relief for thirty-six solid hours of physical stress and heart-tearing strain--she went straight to the other tent and questioned the man who knew Private Ruthven. He had a hopelessly shattered arm, but appeared mightily content and amazingly cheerful. He knew Wally, he said, was in the same platoon with him; didn't know much about him except that he was a very decent sort; no, knew nothing about his people or his home, although he remembered--yes, there was a girl. Wally had shown him her photograph once, "and a real ripper she is too." Didn't know if Wally was engaged to her, or anything more about her, and certainly not her name. The Sister went back to Wally. His wrinkled brow cleared at the sight of her, but she could see that the eyes were sunk more deeply in his head, that they were dulled, no doubt with his suffering. "I'm going to ask you a lot of questions," she said, "and you'll just close your eyes again if I speak of what you want to tell me. You do want to tell me something, don't you?" To her surprise, the "Yes" was not signaled back to her. She was puzzled a moment. "You want to ask me something?" she said. "Yes," the eyelids flicked back. "Is it about a girl?" she asked. ("No.") "Is it about money of any sort?" ("No.") "Is it about your mother, or your people, or your home? Is it about yourself?" She had paused after each question and went on to the next, but seeing no sign of answering "Yes" she was baffled for a moment. But she felt that she could not go to her own bed to which she had been dismissed, could not go to the sleep she so badly needed, until she had found and answered the question in those pitiful eyes. She tried again. "Is it about your regiment?" she asked, and the eyes snapped "Yes," and "Yes," and "Yes" again. She puzzled over that, and then went back to the doctor in charge of the other ward and brought back with her the man who "knew Wally." Mentally she clapped her hands at the light that leaped to the boy's eyes. She had told the man that it was something about the regiment he wanted to know; told him, too, his method of answering "Yes" and "No," and to put his questions in such, a form that they could be so answered. The friend advanced to the bedside with
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