"Doesn't it seem strange to you," she said, "that an armed guard should be coming in this direction just when we needed them? And that Will should be at the head of them?" "Why, Betty, what do you mean?" Mollie was beginning when Grace interrupted. "Oh, do you think it can be true?" she cried, seeing Betty's meaning and clinging to it desperately. "Oh, Betty, Betty, if it only is!" "What are you talking about?" cried Mollie impatiently. "Can what be what?" "Let's wait," said Betty, quickening her pace, "and let Will tell the story!" CHAPTER XXV THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED After dinner in the living-room of the Hostess House, a snapping, dancing, crackling fire in the grate, and the girls gathered in an expectant semicircle about it. They were nervous, too, for every once in a while one of them would get up, look out the window, throw an extra log upon the fire and sit down again with a "why-don't-they-come?" look of impatience upon her face. A ring at the door bell! "I'll answer it," cried Betty, jumping up and nearly overturning a chair in her eagerness. When she returned a couple of minutes later, her face held a look of unutterable disgust. "Only one of the guests," she said, as the girls looked up eagerly. "I was sure that must be the boys." "They're terribly late," grumbled Mollie, kicking an overturned edge of the rug into place, as if even that small vent to her feelings was a relief. "They'll be all talked out before they get here." Another ring at the door bell! This time there was no mistake. A chorus of excited voices greeted Betty as she opened the door for them and a moment later the boys burst into the living-room, fairly exhaling importance. The girls welcomed them eagerly and drew up more chairs before the fire. "Gee, but we've had some time," cried Allen, fairly panting from exertion and excitement. "If you girls were heroines before, you're more than ever so, now." "But where's Will?" asked Grace, with that old, anxious look. "I thought he was coming with you." "He is," Frank answered her. "But he was summoned to a very important conference with the colonel----" "The colonel!" they cried incredulously, while Grace stamped her foot with impatience. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "Just that," he answered, enjoying their mystification too much to enlighten them at once. "When he received the order he told us fellows to come on over and he'd join us as soon as he could break away." "Oh, Allen, please tell me what it all means." Grace was fairly crying with excitement and eagerness. "Please don't keep me waiting any longer!" "I'm sorry, Grace--I didn't think," said Allen, in quick compunction. "It means," he added, with a ring of pride in his voice, "that Will is what we always believed him to be--one of the finest fellows that ever lived. I'm proud to be called his friend!" "Oh, Allen!" Grace felt blindly for a handkerchief and Betty slipped it into her hand. "Oh, Allen,----"