I said prayers again as Esky and I sped along the snow-covered roads—and the prayers had nothing to do with the snow, nor were they exactly complaints this time. I prayed for a sporting chance, for just a “break,” and I was in such excitement that I quite forgot about Captain Winstead as well as Jay-Jay Marfield and his proposals, for I was on the threshold of adventure—an adventure that would beat anything the fiction writers could offer for a heroine. I was confident that, if my sneaking hopes materialized, I would learn to my own satisfaction that what was apple-sauce for the gander could still be sauce for the goose. CHAPTER 4 A MASK OF KHAKI Esky and I left Wakeham at eight o’clock that morning and arrived at the Camp at eleven thirty to find Leon in the slough of despond because he couldn’t get a pass for love nor money. We talked over the situation and every other remark of his had to do with how much he wanted to see Vyvy “just once more.” Well, I got sick of hearing it, and, although the sight of this vast military establishment had rather weakened my desire to go through with my last resort plans, I did finally suggest it to him. “You’re insane!” was his first comment, and then he added, rather huffily, too, “This is no time for jokes.” “I’m not joking at all,” I told him. “I mean it. Isn’t it perfectly possible? I’ve got a suit of your civies in the car; we can go outside and exchange clothes; you take Esky and go home, and I’ll come in here and make myself at home until you get back. What’s wrong with that? You said yourself that there’s never anything to do on Saturday and Sunday, and you can be back here to-morrow afternoon. So what’s wrong with that picture?” Still he didn’t seem to take me seriously. “I’d as leave go A.W.O.L.,” he said. “Yes? And maybe get caught and sent to Atlanta because you ducked out when the outfit was expecting travel orders? And you wouldn’t want to throw up a chance to go overseas anyway. God, I should think you’d be so excited you couldn’t think straight.” I could see that he was beginning to weaken, but he promptly thought of another objection. “What about your hair? You don’t suppose anyone would be foolish enough to think I had grown hair that long, do you?” He thought that objection was insurmountable. But I jumped it at once. “I’d just as leave have my hair cut boy fashion,” I told him. “Can get it done somewhere in a few minutes’ time. What do you say?” Well, he didn’t know what to say. He always was a slower thinker than I and it took him several minutes to digest the whole idea. “There isn’t anything that might come up during your absence, is there? I mean, anything that I couldn’t do?” I asked, before he had time to answer. He considered the possibilities for a moment and answered a rather dumb “No—I guess not. I could show you where everything is anyway.” “Well—” I said. “Then it’s all settled. Let’s start.”