ut with greater confidence. "You might be training this minute,
Jeb, were it not for my vain desire to put you quickly in a place of
command! I am greatly distressed--greatly to be blamed!"

"Please don't say that, sir," Jeb turned to him quickly, yet with more
pleasure than solicitude in his voice. "There'll be a second camp, and I
won't lose anything in the long run. Even if I never get to go at all,
Colonel, I've the satisfaction of having tried--that is, I _will_ have
tried; which, along with your kindness, is more than a compensation."

He meant this. He saw an opportunity, moreover, to beat the draft by
giving out ahead of time his determination to attend the second training
camp. It had not before occurred to him, because he had been too
mentally paralyzed to think clearly. Now a suspicion which once had
flickered in his mind came back with renewed vigor: that a kind of Fate
was watching his career. It had steered him safely past the home
company, and later had steered through rapids that might easily have
dashed him against the first training camp. At present it was pointing
to a secret passage of escape from conscription. To-day, he figured
rapidly, was the thirty-first of May; the second camp would not open
until August the twenty-seventh. Oh, lots of things could happen in
three months! Jeb had not felt quite so hopeful since the declaration of
war, and launched a flow of pyrotechnical sentiments which warmed the
Colonel's blood.

This wordy recklessness continued while they turned into the _Eagle_
building and ascended to the "office." Mr. Strong looked up smilingly as
they entered, and the Colonel, standing with legs apart, pushed back his
hat, exclaiming:

"Amos, Jeb has in him, I declare, sir, the spirit of the old days! He'll
make a record, sir, of which we'll be proud; and also make those
wretched Huns take water or I don't know a soldier! Rather than feel
depressed because our planning has thus far kept him away from the
Colors, he's confidently and happily looking forward to the second
training camp for officers, sir. Incidentally this will spare him the
odium--the odium, sir--of being drafted like a common slacker!"

"I'd die if I were drafted," Jeb put in. "I don't see how drafted men
can face their own kind, much less the enemy!"

"You're right," the Colonel thundered. "Such a system saps our manhood!
I thank God, Amos, that in the old days men responded to the call
without being driven like