"Thank you, sir. C Company's men won't get us if there's any way to prevent it." "Join the company as soon as you can locate us, men. Firing may guide you, but, in that case, you'll have to avoid joining the wrong company." Both young soldiers once more saluted. Then, with the message securely tucked in Hal's haversack, the bunkies started down the trail. They had not gone many yards ere they heard the orders for Cortland's company to fall in for the advance. A mile of the distance Hal and Noll had covered when they encountered the slow-moving wagon train. "Hello, rookies!" called Corporal Raynes banteringly. "Where are you headed." "Yes, it's surely a fine day, Corporal," nodded Hal, as the two bunkies hurried on. "That Overton kid is the one I must get hunk with before many days are over," grunted Raynes. "I must make him look as cheap with his company commander as he's made me look with mine." When the wagon train had gone about two miles and a half further up the trail Corporal Raynes shook with his own chuckles. He had run across his chance, and was shrewd enough to recognize it. CHAPTER VI RAYNES FINDS A PATRIOTIC ALLY The trail was broader here. Some thirty feet from the rough road an old-time log cabin, well preserved, stood in a little grove of trees. Before the door, on a backless chair, sat an old man, roughly clad in buckskin, who was dividing his time between talking to a dog and cleaning the old rifle that lay across his knees. As the horses had had a hard pull, the wagon boss ordered a halt on this level stretch of trail. Corporal Raynes, his head buzzing with half a dozen plans, leaped down from the wagon in his restored shoes. He sauntered slowly over to this old-time hunter. "'Day, Pop," he greeted the old man. "'Day," grunted the other. "You're a soger, I reckon?" "Yes," admitted Raynes, seating himself on the ground and producing his pipe. "Uniform gives me away, doesn't it?" "Some," returned the old hunter. "There's been a thunderin' lot of ye around to-day. I've heard a heap of firing twicet to-day." Corporal Raynes nodded. "Wa'n't shooting up nothing real, was ye?" inquired the old man. "No, Pop; what we call manoeuvres," Baynes explained. "Jest plain, tom-fool, sham fighting, eh?" "That's it," nodded the corporal. "But it isn't so tom-fool, after all. It teaches soldiers a lot about the real manoeuvres of war." "Huh! I wonder ef it teaches ary mother's son of ye any better how to fight the Japs when your time comes?" "You think we're going to fight the Japs some day, do you?" inquired Baynes, finishing the filling of his pipe. "Think?" retorted the old man testily. "I don't have to think. Some day we've got to depend on you sogers to drive them pesky brown critters back into the Pacific Ocean, or the Japs will own the whole coast and clean up here to the Rockies." "You don't seem to like the Japs, Pop?" observed Corporal Baynes, puffing at his pipe.