he thought he might be of service, doing what he was told and asking no questions. Several times he displayed an intelligent initiative. And when each man is trying to do the work of two or three, every small saving of unnecessary effort through some one else counts.

At the present time there were fifteen hundred laborers employed on the cantonment. They were building barracks and small wooden bungalows and large store-houses for provisions and supplies from the ordnance and quartermaster departments. Every hour or so freight had to be unloaded from cars, so that they might be removed from the tracks and others take their place.

The soldiers were more often employed in the construction of roads and the clearing away of a century's growth of underbrush.

There was little in the camp that escaped Billy's quiet observation. The very fact that he did not talk, when ordinarily he had a passion as well as a gift for conversation was in itself a suspicious circumstance.

For once in his life Billy was finding it more worth while to listen and receive information rather than to impart his own ideas.

At first the great drawback was that the laborers did not have time, or else they did not feel the inclination to talk at all seriously. They would simply exchange jokes with one another, or sing snatches of popular songs.

The laborers belonged to a company under bond to the government that there would be no traitors employed at the war camps. Therefore if the men held any views connected with the war, they gave no expression to them. Moreover, the officers and soldiers were constantly in and out among the men at all hours. Nevertheless, Billy became more and more convinced that if a man were willing to sacrifice his own life in case he were discovered, it was impossible even with the strictest regulations to avoid the peril of a spy.

One day at lunch time the boy was sitting alone in the shadow made by a pile of lumber, which afforded a little relief from the heat of the noon sun, when two of his fellow laborers came and sat down only a few feet away. They saw him, of course, but seemed not to resent his presence; so, after smiling with the innocent, boyish expression peculiar to him, Billy continued eating. He brought his lunch with him every day in a basket as the other laborers did.

One of the two men, whom he thought a Swede, was rather an especial friend, although the only fashion in which they so far had expressed 

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