"I was out, a little while ago, and found these cards under the door when I returned," explained Mrs. Overton, handing the cards to her son. "Mr. and Mrs. Redding," Hal read from the pasteboards. "Shall you return their call, Mother?" "I don't believe I shall. But you have something there to show me?" "Yes; I met the postman on the street, and he handed me a letter--from the War Department." "Your orders?" "Yes, Mother." "What regiment? Where are you to be stationed?" asked Mrs. Overton eagerly. "Which question shall I answer first, Mother?" the Army boy queried, half-teasingly. "Your station?" "Fort Butler." "Where on earth is that?" "In Texas, on the border." "Thank goodness, it's in the United States," exclaimed Mrs. Overton fervently. "I was afraid you'd be sent back to the Philippines, or to Guam." "The Navy garrisons the island of Guam, Mother." "Well, then, to Alaska, or to some other outlandish place. I'm glad you're to go to some place where I can get on the cars and go to see you." There was to come a time in the no distant future when her splendid son would be called upon to go where she could not follow--a time when Hal and his associates would be over-seas fighting for the democracy of the world, as well as for the existence of their beloved homeland. "And some of my first savings as an officer will go to pay your fare, Mother. But you don't seem interested in the regiment, after all." "Well, which regiment is it?" "The Thirty-seventh Infantry, Colonel Wheatman." "Would you rather have gone to the Thirty-fourth?" "For many reasons, much rather. But I'm contented to go wherever Uncle Sam sends me. That's the only right way for a soldier to feel." "I would have liked the Thirty-fourth better, too," remarked Mrs. Overton thoughtfully. "The Thirty-fourth is soon due to be back from the Philippines, while your new Thirty-seventh may just be getting ready to start there." "And the last bit of my news, Mother, is that I am to report for duty with my new regiment on September fifteenth." "So soon?" cried Mrs. Overton, her voice keen with disappointment. "Why, it seems as though you had come home only yesterday. And now you must run away again." "All in the soldier's game. But it won't be long before you'll be coming out to visit me." "You have no house on the post, and you won't have any place to keep me if I come, Hal." "A bachelor officer, Mother, must be very attentive to the married women on the post. Then one of the married women will invite his mother to visit at her quarters." "You don't have to _flirt_ with married women, I hope?" "Not so you could notice it, Mother," replied Lieutenant Hal gravely. "An officer, we are taught in the Army, is the descendant of the knight of old. So the officer must be careful to be always very respectful with all women. If he fails in that obligation his brother officers make his stay in the Army so disagreeable that he's glad to get out of the Army altogether."