"Allen, Allen!" cried Betty when it was all over and they had turned away, "I'm proud, so proud, just to be--an American!" CHAPTER XIX FLAMES For the girls during the happy, work-filled, pleasure-filled days that followed, only one cloud darkened the horizon. That was the continued strange behavior of Will Ford. About a week after their arrival, Grace had received a letter from him, saying that he was coming on for an indefinite stay. Betty found her friend with the letter clenched tight in one hand, while the other crushed a handkerchief into a hard little ball. "Why, Grace, what is the matter?" Betty sat down beside her and slipped a sympathetic arm about her shoulders. "Tell me, have you had bad news?" "No, I suppose you couldn't exactly call it that," said Grace wearily, folding up the letter and replacing it carefully in its envelope. "As a rule I'd think it was mighty good news. Will is coming to Camp Liberty." "Oh, has he enlisted, after all?" cried Betty impulsively, and the next minute could have bitten her tongue out for her thoughtlessness. The tears had risen to Grace's eyes and she had turned away. "No," she said, very softly. "He hasn't enlisted." Betty's brow puckered in bewilderment. "Did he say why he was coming on?" she asked, not knowing just what to say. "He said he was coming on business," Grace replied listlessly, then added, with a sudden fierce outburst of emotion: "I wish he'd stay in Deepdale. I wish, if he can't be honorable and live up to his ideals like the other boys, he wouldn't come where they are. If he is my brother, I'm ashamed----" "Hush, Grace, hush," cried Betty soothingly, putting a firm hand over her friend's mouth. "You're all excited and worked up now or you wouldn't say such things. Didn't I tell you before that Will has his reasons? Are you going to let a friend have more faith in him than his own sister?" "Betty Nelson," Grace began angrily, then broke down and began to sob weakly. "I can't help it," she said, as Betty tried to comfort her. "I've always loved Will so, and been so proud of him. He's been such a good brother, too! I simply can't understand it!" "Never mind," went on Betty soothingly, trying desperately to think of something really comforting to say. "Maybe after Will gets here he'll explain things. Till then, as my mother says, we'll just be 'canty wi' thinkin' aboot it.'" But when the conversation was reported to the other girls, it troubled them a good deal, and they longed to solve the mystery. And when Will came he refused to be of any help whatever, keeping almost entirely to himself, and answering questions put to him vaguely, if at all. His actions became more and more mysterious, and it was absolutely impossible to make him out. "Just leave him alone," was Allen's advice, and the girls were reluctantly obliged to follow it. "But I wish I knew!" sighed Betty. "Yes," was all Allen answered.