The Outdoor Girls in Army Service | Page 5

glad to change a subject which was becoming too personal. "No story--no supper, you know."
"We don't want supper--we want breakfast," interrupted Frank, with a grin. "What have you been saying to her, Allen--to get her dates mixed like that?"
"Allen Washburn, are you going to tell that story or are you not?" queried Mollie, in a menacingly quiet tone of voice. "If you're not--"
"Yes, ma'am," said Allen meekly. "Where shall I begin, please?"
"At the beginning," said Grace sarcastically, and reached for her candy box, grimacing to find it empty.
"Thank you," said Allen courteously. "Well, as you know, we four husky braves meandered from the island one bright morning in the early part of the week to seek our fortune, as it were, in the city of promise."
"Yes, that's all it does do," Roy put in pessimistically. "Promise!"
"As I was saying," Allen continued, settling himself in a more comfortable position on the steps, and ignoring the interruption. "We sauntered off, and straightway looked up a recruiting station."
"Oh!" gasped Amy, hands clasped and eyes shining. "That must have been exciting."
"Well, I don't know," said Allen, scratching his head reflectively, "that that part was so exciting, but wait till you hear what happened afterward. After we found where the recruiting office was, we went to the hotel we were stopping at, and punished a mighty big breakfast. You see, we figured out that we were going to put our necks into the noose, as it were, and we wanted something good and big to stand up on."
"Wouldn't your feet do?" asked Betty innocently.
"Heavens, no!" replied Allen, answering the query in solemn earnest, while the girls giggled, and the boys grinned appreciatively. "We were so nervous by that time we weren't sure we had any feet."
"All you had to do was to look," murmured Mollie maliciously. "You couldn't miss 'em."
Allen looked hurt, got up and sat on his feet.
"If you don't see them, perhaps you'll forget about them," he offered by way of explanation. "You don't know how sensitive I am on the subject of feet."
"I couldn't blame you," Mollie was beginning, when Betty broke in with a little despairing cry for help.
"If we don't stop them," she said, looking appealingly about her, "we won't get any farther than breakfast. Allen, what did you do next?"
"Next?" queried Allen, stretching his long legs and squinting up at the sun. "Let me see. Oh yes! Having put down a breakfast that must have added four pounds to our weight, we sauntered forth once more to meet our doom. By that time we were so nervous, we almost mistook a caf�� on the corner for the recruiting station--"
"Hey, speak for yourself, won't you?" queried Roy, adding, as he turned to the girls with a grin, "We had to show Allen a performing monkey on the street, and get his mind off, before we succeeded in engineering him to the right place."
"Gee, some fellows have a gift," said Allen, regarding Roy admiringly. "If I could tell 'em like that, old man, I'd be Supreme Court Justice before the month was up.
"Well, as I was saying," he continued, "after much hesitation and side-stepping, we at last succeeded in reaching our destination. After that, it took ten minutes to get up nerve to go in.
"When we had at last tremblingly ascended the stairs, we found ourselves in a large room, with all the windows open and half a dozen wise-looking men, whom we took to be doctors, presiding. There were three or four other fellows in the room, come like ourselves, to be examined. Then we were shoved behind a huge screen with half a dozen other huskies--they looked like prize fighters to me--and told to take our clothes off. Then--we were examined."
"Well?" they queried, leaning forward eagerly.
"Well," said Allen, waving his hand in a deprecating gesture, "of course, being the perfect specimens of manhood we are, the committee jumped at us."
"If they'd jumped on you they'd have shown more taste," remarked Mollie unflatteringly.
"But, Allen," put in Grace, who had listened to the recital, with a troubled frown on her forehead, "was Will with you?"
Allen's glance fell and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
"No," he said.

CHAPTER III
NEWS FROM THE FRONT
There was another awkward pause, which nobody seemed able to break.
"But Will went to town with you," Amy remarked at last.
"Yes, he went with us," Allen agreed reluctantly. "But after we reached the hotel, and were making our plans for enlisting, he refused to go with us, saying he had business of his own to attend to. What that business was none of us know, for we were getting ready to catch the train for here when he rejoined us. However," he added loyally, "I'd bet my bottom dollar that Will has good reasons for everything he does, and when