separated only once, and that was when Hicks got a two
weeks' leave and, by dint of persevering and fatiguing travel,
went to Venice. He had no proper passport, and the consuls and
officials to whom he had appealed in his difficulties begged him
to content himself with something nearer. But he said he was
going to Venice because he had always heard about it. Bert Fuller
was glad to welcome him back to Coblentz, and gave a "wine party"
to celebrate his return. They expect to keep an eye on each
other. Though Bert lives on the Platte and Hicks on the Big Blue,
the automobile roads between those two rivers are excellent.

Bert is the same sweet-tempered boy he was when he left his
mother's kitchen; his gravest troubles have been frequent
betrothals. But Hicks' round, chubby face has taken on a slightly
cynical expression,--a look quite out of place there. The chances
of war have hurt his feelings... not that he ever wanted
anything for himself. The way in which glittering honours bump
down upon the wrong heads in the army, and palms and crosses
blossom on the wrong breasts, has, as he says, thrown his compass
off a few points.

What Hicks had wanted most in this world was to run a garage and
repair shop with his old chum, Dell Able. Beaufort ended all
that. He means to conduct a sort of memorial shop, anyhow, with
"Hicks and Able" over the door. He wants to roll up his sleeves
and look at the logical and beautiful inwards of automobiles for
the rest of his life.

As the transport enters the North River, sirens and steam
whistles all along the water front begin to blow their shrill
salute to the returning soldiers. The men square their shoulders
and smile knowingly at one another; some of them look a little
bored. Hicks slowly lights a cigarette and regards the end of it
with an expression which will puzzle his friends when he gets
home.

By the banks of Lovely Creek, where it began, Claude Wheeler's
story still goes on. To the two old women who work together in
the farmhouse, the thought of him is always there, beyond
everything else, at the farthest edge of consciousness, like the
evening sun on the horizon.

Mrs. Wheeler got the word of his death one afternoon in the
sitting-room, the room in which he had bade her good-bye. She was
reading when the telephone rang.

"Is this the Wheeler farm? This is the telegraph office at
Frankfort. We have a message from the War Department,--" the
voice hesitated. "Isn't M