She had also helped the boys to make wooden swords out of sticks, and also hand-grenades of thick paper filled with gravel, which would have had a most disastrous effect upon the enemy if the latter had not been imaginary. It was here one afternoon, as the boys were having a battle with all the horrors of war, that young Darrell appeared, and as he and the two girls sat on the stone ledge, he told them how he was “all in” by having had a boxing-match with a prisoner when on police duty. “The chap was a foreigner,” he explained. “He could only speak a little English, and I had heard him mutter to himself several times in rather a queer way. Suddenly, when I was off my guard, he let his club fly at me and gave me a whack on the head that knocked me silly. I saw stars for a moment, and then I let out on the chap,—he was a big fellow, as strong as an ox,—and was just about to use my automatic when the Military Police rushed up and in a few moments they had him as tight as a drum. It turned out that he was off his nut, and I believe he is now in some asylum. Anyway he put me in the hospital with a cracked skull for a while, and then I was granted a furlough, and came up here with mother.” The girls, under the spell of the military, were inclined to make a hero of the soldier-boy, with the long-lashed, merry blue eyes and cheery laugh, in their minds at least, if not openly. Later, when he was sitting alone with Nathalie, in a burst of confidence, with sudden gravity, he lamented that he feared that he would never reach the “firing-line” overseas. When Nathalie expressed her surprise at his fears, he explained that he had been detailed to sanitary work in the hospital, and then he added, with gloom-shadowed eyes, “And it looks to me as if it would be steady company; but it is up to Uncle Sam, and a soldier is no soldier if he kicks at his job.” “Oh, I just wish I were a man, so I could go over there,” sighed Nathalie a little dolefully. “Sometimes I wish I had a million lives so I could give them to my country, and go over and fight.” “Ho! ho! Blue Robin! You have changed your mind then, haven’t you?” good-naturedly jeered Nita, who had just come up behind them. Her blue eyes gleamed mischief as she continued laughingly, “Surely that was not the way you felt a short while ago.” “No, that is true,” replied Nathalie with reddened cheeks, “but I was selfish then, and failed to read the handwriting on the wall.” As Nathalie looked up in a shamefaced way at the young soldier she saw a strange expression flit across his face as he gazed down at her. “Did you call Miss Page Blue Robin?” he asked hurriedly of Nita, with a sudden, strange interest. “Oh, that is just a nickname,” began Nathalie, “and——”