The tragic thing to Dick was that he saw growing in Sabinsport out of this clash, an increasing distaste for a soldier. "Never, never," he said, "would the heart of Sabinsport be reached until this was blotted out." But what was to be done. He took it to the commanding officer himself, and between them they laid out a plan for capturing Sabinsport's heart. "It's melodrama," said Dick. "It will do the work," said the General. But that was to be done. The execution of the plan, which the General and Dick had agreed upon for the siege and capture of Sabinsport's heart, was not easy, in the pressure and anxiety which the epidemic in the camp had brought, and its probable effect seemed to both men more and more doubtful as the friction between the town and camp grew. It was on Christmas night that it was to be carried out. The Sunday night before Dick came home, white with weariness and despondency. He had had a day too hard for him, that he knew; one which his physician would have called dangerous. But how could it be helped? At daybreak a doctor at the camp had telephoned that Peter Tompkins couldn't live, that he had asked for the "minister." Would he go down? "Be there in an hour," Dick had answered--and he was. The poor lad was almost gone. Dick sat with him to the end, took his last message--winced, wondered, and bowed his head at the sheer, cheerful bravery with which the boy took what he called faintly his "medicine." "Didn't take care like they told me," he said. "Tell Mother they've done the best they could." But Dick knew that while the loyal fellow might take upon himself the cause of his own death, blundering orders and unthinking friends were responsible. The boys had been told to bring as little as possible to camp--only a suit case which could be sent back with the clothes they wore. Peter, like hundreds of others in that cruel month of December had started from his home in his oldest, thinnest clothes, without an overcoat. He was going to throw everything away, he said, and not trouble to send anything back; and there had been nobody in the town with sufficient forethought and authority to prevent the risk he took. He had reached camp chilled to the bone. The supply of clothing was short. He had to go about for days in his thin, old garments. He could not get warm, exercise as he would, hug the fire as he would. In the tremendous pressure of preparation and organization, it was impossible that the physical condition of each boy should be known to his officers. Peter had to shift for himself in those first days. He was shy and homesick. It was Dick, who was making a specialty of the homesick, who had discovered how serious his condition was and who had seen to it that he was sent to the hospital; and it was Dick who had given him the care which the one doctor and one nurse in a ward where there were two hundred very sick boys could not possibly give.