XVIII SERIOUSLY WOUNDED 162 XIX BETTY CONFESSES 170 XX MISSING 180 XXI A NARROW ESCAPE 187 XXII DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 197 XXIII THE SHADOW LIFTS 207 XXIV HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS 217 XXV JOY 227 THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT CHAPTER I TO THE FRONT "I know it's utterly foolish and unreasonable," sighed Amy Blackford, laying down the novel she had been reading and looking wistfully out of the window, "but I simply can't help it." "What's the matter?" asked Mollie Billette, raising her eyes reluctantly from a book she was devouring and looking vaguely at Amy's profile. "Did you say something?" "No, she only spoke," drawled Grace Ford, extricating herself from a mass of bright-colored cushions on the divan, preparatory to joining in the conversation. "I ask you, Mollie, did you ever know Amy to say anything important?" "Why yes, I have," said Mollie unexpectedly. "In fact, she is about the only one of us Outdoor Girls who ever does say anything important--except Betty, perhaps." Amy withdrew her gaze from the landscape and looked at the speaker with a twinkle in her eyes. "What will you have, Mollie?" she asked whimsically. "When you become complimentary, you are apt to rouse my suspicions." "Well, whatever you were going to say, please say it, and let me get back to my book," returned Mollie, ignoring the imputation. "I was in the most interesting part--" "Why, I'm just plain homesick," said Amy, adding quickly, as the girls looked at her in surprise. "For Camp Liberty and the Hostess House, you know. I miss the work and the long hours of entertaining and cheering people up. I feel," she looked around at them as though finding it hard to explain just what she meant, "sort of--lost." The three chums, Mollie Billette, Grace Ford, and Amy Blackford were gathered in the comfortable library of Betty Nelson's home--Betty being the fourth of the merry quartette, dubbed the "Outdoor Girls" by the people of Deepdale, because of their love of the open and of outdoor sports. The girls, as my old readers will doubtless remember, had helped establish a Hostess House at Camp Liberty, and since then had given all their strength and time and youthful enthusiasm to the great work of cheering our young fighters, entertaining their loved ones, and, in the end, sending them with fresh courage and happy memories to the "other side" for the great adventure. And now the girls, completely worn out in their loving service to others, had been sent, much against their will, home to Deepdale for a rest that they sorely needed.