ed in cases where swiftness
was a pressing necessity.

The three American girls were standing together just outside a stone
doorway leading into the yard and awaiting orders. As a matter of
course they wore their Red Cross uniforms: the long circular cape and
the small close-fitting bonnet. But Barbara had also put on nearly
everything else she possessed. They would be traveling all night under
extremely uncomfortable conditions and through a bitterly cold country.
In fact, Barbara looked rather like a little "Mother Bunch" with her
squirrel fur coat on top of her sweater and her cape over them both, and
carrying her army blanket.

Mildred was also prepared for the cold with a heavy coat under her
uniform cape. Unfortunately, Nona owned nothing to make her more
comfortable, except that Mildred had insisted upon lending her her
sweater. But both girls had their blankets over their arms and small
bags in their hands. There would be no room for other luggage.

"We are going to have a wonderful night, I think," Barbara murmured. "Of
course it will be hard and we may have to suffer discomfort and see
others suffering far worse things. But a retreat through this strange
country, with its odd inhabitants, as unlike as if they belonged in
different planets, will be an experience none of us will ever wish to
forget."

It was curious that Barbara should almost whisper her little speech, as
if her voice could be heard above the uproar of the cannonading. Yet in
the pauses between the firing lasting a few moments the silence seemed
almost unearthly.

At present there was just such a silence, so that the American girls
could even hear the creaking of the old wagon wheels as the ambulance
carts rolled out of the fortress yard. Now and then there was a faint
groan from a wounded man that could not be repressed. The wagons had no
springs, but were made as comfortable as possible by layers of hay
covering the wagon floors.

Almost the moment that Barbara's speech was finished, some one suddenly
stepped out of the door, near which the three girls were standing.
Looking up they discovered a colonel in the Russian army, on the
personal staff of General Alexis. No one of the three girls knew the
officer's name; his rank they recognized from the uniform he wore.
Moreover, they had observed him always accompanying the Russian
commander as one of his chief aides.

His appearance in the courtyard at this moment was surprising, but in