"Well, are you ready?" inquired the girl in a quick, businesslike tone.

"What? Oh, yes," said Barry, recalled to the business of the moment.

During the drive the girl gave her whole attention to her wheel, as indeed was necessary, for the road was dangerously slippery, and she drove without lights through the black night. Barry kept up an endless stream of talk, set going by her command, as she took her place at the wheel. "Now tell me about Canada. I can listen, but I can't talk."

In the full tide of his most eloquent passages, Barry found himself growing incoherent at times, for his mind was in a state of oscillation between the wonderful and lustrous qualities of the brown eyes that he remembered flashing upon him in the light of the fire, and that maddening little curl over the girl's ear.

In an unbelievably short time, so it seemed to him, they came upon the rear of a marching column.

"These are your men, I fancy," she said, "and this will be your camp on the left; I know it well. I've often been here."

She swung the car off the road into an open field, set out with tents, and brought the car to a stop beside an old ruined factory.

"This, I believe, will be the best place for your purpose," she said, and sprang from her seat, and ran to the ruin, flashing her torchlight before her. "Here you are," she said. "This will be just the thing."

Barry followed her a few steps down into the long, stone-flagged cellar.

"Splendid! This is the very thing," he cried enthusiastically. "You are really the most wonderful person."

"Now get your stuff in here," she ordered. "But what will you do for wood? There is always water," she added, "in some tanks further on.

Come, I'll show you."

Barry followed her in growing amazement and admiration at her prompt efficiency.

"Now then, there are your tanks," she said. "As for wood, I don't know what you will do, but there is a garden paling a little further on, and, of course--"

"Don't worry about that," said Barry.

"I won't," with a gay laugh; "I know you Canadians, you see."

Together they returned to the car.

Before she mounted to her seat she turned to Barry, and offered him her hand and said: "I think it is perfectly ripping that we were introduced in this way. Though I don't know your name yet," she added shyly.

"Awfully stupid of me," said Barry, and he gave her his name, adding that of the regiment, and his rank.

"Good-bye, then," she said, climbing into her car, and starting her engine.

"But," said Barry, "I must see you safely back."

She laughed a scornful but, as Barry thought, a most delicious little laugh.

"Nonsense! We don't do that sort of thing here, you know. We're on our own."

A little silence fell between them.

"When does your battalion march?" she asked abruptly.

"Perhaps to-morrow. I don't know."

"If you do go then," she said, with again that little touch of shyness, "I suppose I won't see you again."

"See you again," exclaimed Barry, his tone indicating that the possibility of such a calamity was unthinkable, "why, of course I shall see you again. I must see you again--I--I--I just must see you again."

"Good night, then," she said in a soft, hurried voice, throwing in her clutch.

Barry stood listening in the dark to the hum of her engine, growing more faint every moment.

"Some girl, eh?" said a voice. At his side he saw Harry Hobbs. Barry turned sharply upon him.

"Now then, Hobbs, some wood and we will get a fire going and look lively! And, Hobbs, I believe there's a fence about fifty yards down there, which you might find useful. Now move. Quick!" Unconsciously he tried to reproduce, in uttering the last word, Duff's tone and manner.

The effect was evident immediately.

Hobbs without further words departed in the darkness. Again Barry stood listening to the hum of the engine, until he could no longer hear it in the noise and confusion of the camp, but in his heart Harry's words made music.

"Some girl, eh?"

As he stood there in the darkness, hearing that music in his heart, a voice broke in, swearing hard and deep oaths. It was the M. O.

"Hello, doc, my boy; come here," cried Barry.

The M. O. approached. He was in a state of rage that rendered coherent speech impossible.

"Oh, quit it, doc. Let me show you something."

He led him into the ruin, where his spoils were cached.

"Biscuits, my boy, and coffee. Hold on! Listen! I'm going to get a fire going here and in twenty minutes there'll be six cans of fragrant delicious coffee, boiling hot."

"Why, how the--"

"Doc, don't talk! Listen to me! You round up your sick men, and bring them quietly over here. I don't know how many I can supply, but at least, I think, a hundred."

"Why, how the devil--?"

"Go on; I haven't time to talk to you. Get busy!"

Working by flashlight, the men cut open the tins, dumped the biscuits on a blanket spread in a corner of the cellar, while Barry made preparations for a fire.

"Here, Hobbs, you punch two holes in these cans, just an inch from the top."

Soon the fire was blazing cheerily. In its light Barry was searching through the ruin.

"By Jove," he shouted, "the very thing. Just made for us."

He pulled out a long steel rod from a heap of rubbish and ran with it to the fire.

"Here, boys, punch a hole in this wall. Now then, for the cans. String them on this rod."