They had been walking for more than fifteen minutes with the Marine sergeant remaining inarticulate as ever. Finally Elinor broke the silence by asking where he was taking her. “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied in a characteristic, blunt fashion. “Any place, it doesn’t matter!” “Let’s walk down by the tents,” she suggested, hoping that if they went in that direction, Lefty might make a sudden appearance. “Aw, no,” Williams objected, hoping to keep her on the lonely road so that when he regained his lost courage, there would be no intruders to interrupt their romance. “Let’s keep on goin’ this way, the—er—the scenery is much nicer!” He stole a sidelong glance at her, fearing that she might further protest to their continuing along the Mission road, but she didn’t speak. Her arm found its way into his and he felt a peculiar sensation up and down his spine. “Gee, this is swell, ain’t it, Elinor?” “What is?” His face flushed a vivid crimson and he was thankful to a dark night for hiding his excited emotions. “Why—er—everything,” he stammered, “the moon and—er—well, everything!” Just over beyond the Mission, some natives were chanting dreamy Spanish songs of love to the accompaniment of strumming guitars. “Listen to that lovely music!” Elinor exclaimed, completely enthralled. “It’s all so—so perfectly beautiful!” “Just like a storybook, ain’t it?” was Panama’s description. “You’ve spent a lot of time in the tropics, haven’t you, Panama?” “Three years at the Canal, a year and a half in Haiti and now back here for the second time,” he replied in a dreamy manner. “I think it’s great! This part of the world is just like apple pie to me!” “Do you like apple pie?” Elinor asked for want of something better to say. “Sure, when it’s homemade! Don’t you?” Elinor struggled to suppress a giggle, and with a sombre look, replied, “Why, yes—surely—I guess everybody does.” “My mother made swell pie,” he explained. “You don’t get much of that sort of thing knockin’ around in this racket. Sometimes I sorta want to quit it all and get a regular job where I can have a home and——” “Yes, I understand,” she interrupted. “Men want that kind of a life after a certain age, don’t they, Panama?” “I don’t know about that,” he said, a trifle piqued at her mention of his advancing years, “I ain’t so old!” She gasped slightly, realizing that she had hurt him by her thoughtless remark and hurried to explain, “Why, of course you’re not! What I meant was——” “Oh, it’s all right, I don’t mind,” he said. “I don’t mind anything you say!” They had reached the end of the road by this time, and Panama took the girl’s arm, turning off to the right, making sure that they would take the longest way back to camp. Just ahead of them was the thatched roof hut of a native family, no different from hundreds of others that dotted the landscape throughout that section of the country.