Barton had little time for the social life of the camp nor interest in it. He was only interested in those men about him who were as sturdily in earnest as himself in learning and getting ahead. Some were getting into “this army thing,” as they called it, as a profession; some out of pure patriotism, even if they did not talk about it. In either case those who were not thoroughly in earnest did not last long. He was mildly surprised when Morry Copley and his friend Bradley arrived in camp--the former arrayed in a uniform cut by a fashionable tailor, Bradley slouching behind in his heavy way, and with a scowl. Why either of these fellows had come it was hard for Barton to understand. Reports from the factory encouraged Barton to believe that he might safely continue his training. Mayberry had driven over in his car once to see him and they had talked things over. Business seemed running on well-oiled gears. There had been nothing in Ethel Clayton’s brief letters to make him apprehensive. The factory and its affairs seemed far afield from him. The camp interests were so manifold that when even a short furlough was due him Barton did not go home to Mailsburg. Instead he went to New York to confer with certain high officers of the Department of the East who he felt sure would bear him in mind if chance arose for an early assignment to the Front. If business matters remained as they seemed to be, he was determined to get “over there” as soon as possible. Pershing’s hundred thousand were on the scene; the engineers had marched through London and had arrived in France; now it was the Rainbow Division that was talked of as being almost ready to sail, and Frank Barton was eager to be assigned to duty with them. “Rest your mind easy, Barton,” Grandon Fuller assured him the first time he came over to Camp Quehasset with his daughter. “We stockholders appreciate all that you have done; the Board is more than pleased with your work. But you have trained a good assistant in Mayberry. He’ll do very well.” “I believe he will,” Frank Barton said heartily. He would rather, however, have had a reassuring word from Macon Hammerly upon this point. But Hammerly neither wrote to him nor came near the camp. Helen was full of her own plans, although she did not forget to show some interest in Barton’s affairs. She had become an active member of the Red Cross forces. Being amply able to pay her own expenses, and with health and freedom, she had the more easily secured permission to join the very next quota of Red Cross workers sailing from “an Atlantic seaport”--that in about six weeks. Her mother was to go with her and establish herself in Paris. “Really,” Barton thought, “it is brave of Helen, and wonderfully unselfish as well.” That the girl made a display of everything she did was not seen by his blinded eyes.