encampment for the fun of it and in order to kill time which we might be spending in better ways?" he inquired, thinking that perhaps he might answer Bettina's anxious questionings and Billy's impertinence at the same time. "Well, as a matter of fact, our encampment is not a very attractive place up to the present. Did you think so when you made us the visit? One job we have been tackling recently is to clear away the underbrush from a good many thousands of acres of desert which have remained undisturbed from the year one until now. We killed ninety rattlesnakes as a part of the first day's work. Later on we are going to drive artillery across those wastes of sand. Does not sound like play, does it?"

"No," Billy returned patiently, wondering why people would not sometimes answer his questions directly, without first preaching long sermons which seemed to have but little bearing upon them.

"It is because I think a soldier's life is so hard and must be so distasteful to a lot of men that I wonder why you would rather give your energy to fighting than to trying to make the world happier and wiser in other ways."

Lieutenant Carson frowned. He knew the things Billy was saying were being said by a good many people the world over, who were older and wiser, or who should have been wiser, than Billy. But he also realized that these same sentiments were not easy to answer, because they had in them so much of the germ of truth, which was to blossom and flower at some future day.

Moreover, unexpectedly he experienced an impulse to help the boy to see the present world struggle in a clearer light.

"Billy," he added, "you will agree with me, won't you, that pretty nearly everybody is saying the same thing these days? We all claim that we wish the world to enjoy universal peace, that we long for greater justice and happiness and a deeper sense of brotherhood. There is only one point that divides you and me just at present. We all want peace, but some of us want it so much that we are willing to pay for it by the final last sacrifice of our youth and our blood. There are others who think it may be obtained, and apparently you are one of them, simply by sitting still and talking the whole subject over. This is pretty difficult as things are at present. So long as the devil is such a scrapper, those of us who believe in the triumph of right have got to learn to fight back harder and even more successfully than he can fight."

Billy was silent for a moment, then with an egotism which 

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