"But not at once," replied the nurse.

"It is important," urged the doctor.

"Yes, but--there are other things."

"Ah! Other things?"

"Yes, equally--pressing," said the nurse with an undeniably joyous laugh. The doctor looked at her a moment.

"Ah, nurse," he said in a shocked tone, "how often have I deprecated your tendency to--"

"I don't care one bit!" laughed the nurse saucily.

"The message ought to be delivered," insisted the doctor firmly as he moved toward the tent door.

"Well, deliver it then. But wait!" The little nurse ran in before him and called "Nu-u-u-r-s-e Ha-l-ey!"

"All right!" called Cameron from the inside. "Come in!"

"Go on then," said the little nurse to the doctor, "you wanted to."

"A message from the Superintendent," said the doctor, lifting the curtain and pa.s.sing in.

"Don't move, Mandy," said Cameron. "Never mind him."

"No, don't, I beg," said the doctor, ignoring what he saw. "A message, an urgent message for--Corporal Cameron!"

"CORPORAL Cameron?" echoed Nurse Haley.

"He distinctly said and repeated it--Corporal Cameron. And the Corporal is to report for duty as speedily as possible."

"He can't go," said Mandy, standing up very straight with a light in her eyes that the doctor had not seen since that tragic night nearly two years before.

"Can't, eh?" said the doctor. "But the Superintendent says Corporal Cameron is--"

"Corporal Cameron can't go!"

"You--"

"Yes, I forbid it."

"The Corporal is--?"

"Yes," she said proudly, "the Corporal is mine."

"Then," said the doctor emphatically, "of all the lucky chaps it has been my fortune to meet, by all the G.o.ds the luckiest of them is this same Corporal Cameron!"

And Cameron, drawing down to him again the girl standing so straight and proud beside him, looked up at his friend and said:

"Yes, old chap, the luckiest man in all the world is that same Corporal Cameron."