Part 8 (1/2)

Jose, the black-looking Mexican, alone in the room. He had taken both of the chemical fire extinguishers from the wall-one had hung at one end of the room and the other at the other end-and was doing something to them.

Repairing them, perhaps, or merely cleaning them. He sat there cheerfully whistling in a low tone and manipulating a polis.h.i.+ng rag, or something of the kind. He had a bucket beside him.

”I wonder if he can't sleep nights, and that is why he is so busily engaged?” thought Ruth, as she went on out of the building. ”I never knew of his being so workative before.”

But the matter made no real impression on her mind. It was a transitory thought entirely. She went to her clean little cell in the Y. W. C. A.

home and forgot all about Mr. Jose and the fire extinguishers.

CHAPTER IX-TOM SAILS, AND SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS

”You can see your son, Second Lieutenant Thomas Cameron, before he sails for France, if you will be at the Polk Hotel, at eight o'clock to-morrow p. m.”

There have been other telegrams sent and received of more moment than the above, perhaps; but none that could have created a more profound impression in the Cameron household.

There have been not a few similar messages put on the telegraph wires and received by anxious parents during these months since America has really got into the World War.

There is every necessity for secrecy in the sailing of the transports for France. The young officers themselves have sometimes told more to their relatives than they should before the hour of sailing. So the War Department takes every precaution to safeguard the crossing of our boys who go to fight the Huns.

With Mr. Cameron holding an important government position and being ready himself to go across before many weeks, it was only natural that he should have this information sent him that he might say good-bye to Tom. The latter had already been a fortnight with ”his boys” in the training camp and was fixed in his a.s.signment to his division of the expeditionary forces.

Ruth chanced to be at the Outlook, as the Cameron home was called, for over Sunday when this telegram was received. Both she and Helen were vastly excited.

”Oh, I'm going with you! I must see Tommy once more,” cried the twin with an outburst of sobs and tears that made her father very unhappy.

”My dear! You cannot,” Mr. Cameron tried to explain.

”I can! I must!” the girl cried. ”I know I'll never see Tommy again.

He-he's going over there to-to be shot--”

”Don't, dear!” begged Ruth, taking her chum into her arms. ”You must not talk that way. This is war--”

”And is war altogether a man's game? Aren't we to have anything to say about it, or what the Government shall do with our brothers?”

”It is no game,” sighed Ruth Fielding. ”It is a very different thing.

And our part in it is to give, and give generously. Our loved ones if we must.”

”I don't want to give Tom!” Helen declared. ”I can never be patriotic enough to give him to the country. And that's all there is to it!”

”Be a good girl, Helen, and brace up,” advised her father, but quite appreciating the girl's feelings. There had always been a bond between the Cameron twins stronger than that between most brothers and sisters.

”I know I shall never see him again,” wailed the girl.

”I hope he'll not hear that you said that, dear,” said the girl of the Red Mill, shaking her head. ”We must send him away with cheerfulness.

You tell him from me, Mr. Cameron, that I send my love and I hope he will come back a major at least.”

”He'll be killed!” Helen continued to wail. ”I know he will!”

But that did not help things a mite. Mr. Cameron went off late that night and reached the rendezvous called for in the telegram. It was in a port from which several transports were sailing within a few hours, and he came back with a better idea of what it meant for thousands of men under arms to get away on a voyage across the seas.

Tom was busy with his men; but he had time to take supper with his father at the hotel and then got permission for Mr. Cameron to go aboard the s.h.i.+p with him and see how comfortable the War Department had made things for the expeditionary force.