ed a bit when he said he was going--but I think she must have
known all the time he was going. Because when he told us--we were at the
breakfast table--she sort of cried a little, and then she stopped.

"'I've got everything ready for you,' she said.

"And he looked at her, and smiled. 'So you knew I was going?' he asked her.
And she nodded her head, and he got up and kissed her. I never saw him do
that before--he never did that before, when I was looking on," Dick
concluded seriously.

"I hope he'll come back all right, Dick," said Harry. "It's hard, old
chap!"

"I wouldn't have him stay home for anything!" said Dick, fiercely. "And I
will do my share! You see if I don't! I don't care what they want me to do!
I'll run errands--I'll sweep out the floors in the War Office, so that some
man can go to war! I'll do _any_thing!"

Somehow Harry realized in that moment how hard it was going to be to beat a
country where even the boys felt like that! The change in the usually
thoughtless, light-hearted Dick impressed him more than anything else had
been able to do with the real meaning of what had come about so suddenly.
And he was thankful, too, all at once, that in America the fear and peril
of war were so remote. It was glorious, it was thrilling, but it was
terrible, too. He wondered how many of the scouts he knew, and how many of
those in school would lose their fathers or their brothers in this war that
was beginning. Truly, there is no argument for peace that can compare with
war itself! Yet how slowly we learn!

Grenfel had gone, and the troop was now in charge of a new scoutmaster,
Francis Wharton. Mr. Wharton was a somewhat older man. At first sight he
didn't look at all like the man to lead a group of scouts, but that, as it
turned out, was due to physical infirmities. One foot had been amputated at
the time of the Boer War, in which he had served with Grenfel. As a result
he was incapacitated from active service, although, as the scouts soon
learned, he had begged to be allowed to go in spite of it. He appeared at
the scout headquarters, the pavilion of a small local cricket club, on
Wednesday morning.

"I don't know much about this--more shame to me," he said, cheerfully,
standing up to address the boys. "But I think we can make a go of it--I
think we'll be able to do something for the Empire, boys. My old friend
John Grenfel told me a little; he said you'd pull me through. These are war
times and you'll hav