are burning up my feet!”

“It’s the real McCoy, all the same,” Norma insisted. “It’s what I’ve been training for all my life! My father thought it was just for fun, for after all, I was a girl.”

“How little he knew!” Betty replied soberly.

Marching and drilling were not hard for Norma. She had time to think of other things. She began studying the ancient fort, and the atmosphere that hung about it like a cloud.

She had begun to love the place, and at times found herself wishing that she might remain here for a long time.

“Four weeks seem terribly short,” she told Betty.

“It may be much longer,” Betty suggested. “You might join the motor transport school and learn to drive a truck in a convoy.”

“Yes, and I might not,” was her reply.

“Or attend the bakers’ and cooks’ school,” Betty suggested.

“Not that either.”

“Well then,” Betty exclaimed, “since you’re so awfully good at this drilling stuff, perhaps they’d let you attend the officers’ training school.”

“Hmm.” she murmured. “Now you’re talking! Maybe. I don’t know.”

On that particular day, as a bright winter sun shone down on the long parade ground, Norma thought only of the old fort and what it stood for.

It was quite ancient, but just how old, she could not tell. Always a lover of horses, she tried to picture the parade ground in those old days when a thousand, perhaps two thousand men, all mounted on glorious cavalry horses, came riding down that stretch of green.

“Dignified officers in the lead—band playing and horses prancing! What a picture!” she murmured.

On each side of the parade ground were rows of red brick buildings. On the right side had been the homes of officers. Now these were occupied by the officers of the school.

On the opposite side were barracks occupied by officer candidates in training.

“That’s where I’d be 

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