a perfect lady.

Her “club” was no mere work of the imagination. It was real enough, and quite gorgeous. In the days of peace and plenty it had been called “The Saddle and Gun Club.” Swanky Englishmen in spats and riding breeches had lived there. There they had talked of riding and racing and of elephant and tiger hunts.

Now the saddles and guns were serving a sterner purpose. The men had gone to war. And their club had been turned over to the ladies of the U. S. Armed forces, WACS and nurses, with a visiting WAVE now and then.

The lounge of the club was an immense place, all screened in and open to every breeze. Here an endless array of easy chairs invited one to rest. At one end of what had once been a bar, sodas, orange juice, tea and cakes were now being served.

After a shower Gale Janes had dressed in the blouse and khaki slacks. At the bar she had selected cakes and a tall one of iced tea, then had accepted the inviting comfort of a huge rattan chair.

As she sipped her tea she listened to the conversation around her. All of a sudden she became interested in the things a little brown girl—a native nurse—was saying.

“It was exciting! Oh, so exciting!” The brown girl’s voice rose. “It was funny too, like a circus. There we were, a hundred and fifty of us,—maybe not so many and maybe more—all retreating, and with a colonel as our guide.

“You should have seen him!” She laughed a merry laugh. “There he was—a great man! Oh yes! A very great man! Dressed in a shirt and shorts—his brown legs all covered with hair and over his shoulder a tommy gun. Him—the biggest fighting man in Burma.

“Oh, truly!” the native girl went on. “But he was wonderful! Not just funny. He is an old man, but when we waded for hours in the stream, younger men couldn’t take it. They just tumbled on the shore and groaned. But the old colonel,—he marched right straight ahead.

“And we girls—” she laughed again. “There were six of us, all native nurses trained by a great missionary doctor. We girls really had fun. We splashed in the water, held our skirts high and sang silly songs.

“Because you know,”—she was very serious—“we were retreating from Burma. All our Chinese armies had been defeated. We had to get to India, the colonel and all of us, so we could get more men. Oh, many, many more men! And go back to save my native land, Burma, 

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