She found little consolation in Landover's contention that the upstart
was bound to hang himself if they gave him rope enough, or in Ruth's
patient reminder that Percival was getting results,--and getting them
without bullying anybody.

Ruth accepted the situation with a calmness that exasperated her aunt.
She announced her intention to obey any order the "boss" might issue,
without recrimination, without complaint. And so, when the day came
for her to go forth with other women to do her share of the cooking,
washing, cleaning, and later on the more interesting task of putting the
huts in order for occupancy, she went with a full understanding of what
was required of her and without a word of protest. The women with whom
she toiled from early morn till sombre dusk draped the land were under
the immediate direction of a stewardess of many years experience, an
Englishwoman whose husband, an engineer, had been killed at the time of
the explosions.

Each night she returned to the ship tired and sore but uncomplaining.
Her strong young body stood the test with the hardiest; her spirit was
unflinching; her heart in the common cause. For she looked ahead with
a clear, far-seeing eye, and saw not one but many winters in this vast,
unguarded prison. And she wondered,--wondered day and night,--what was
ahead of her.

She was young. The young do not dream of death. They dream of life,
and of its fullness. What did fate have in store for her? Sometimes she
crimsoned, sometimes she paled as she looked ahead.

Bare-armed, her heavy sport skirt caught up with pins, her bonny brown
hair loosely coiled, thick golf stockings and sturdy shoes covering her
legs and feet, she presented a figure that caused more than one heart to
thump, more than one head to turn, more than one pair of eyes to follow
her as she went about her work. Her cheeks and throat and breast and
arms were browning under the fire of the noonday sun, her eyes glowed
with the fervour of enthusiasm; her voice was ever cheerful and her
smile, though touched with the blight that lay upon the soul of all these
castaways, was unfailingly bright. And when she returned "home" at night
from her wageless day of toil, she slept as she never had slept before.

Her aunt worked in what was known as the salvage corps. She was one of
the clerks employed in checking out the cargo and other materials seized
by the committee of ten, as the leaders in this singular enterprise were
ca