was asking her at this moment. “You are in India, and today you have had a real part in a real battle of the air.”

“Yes,” was her reply to the gremlin. “The Japs were over this place three months ago. They were over again today. When the colonel and his grand American army get on the march, the Japs will be too busy for a return visit. So then we will be quite free to dream the happy hours away.”

“Bah!” she exclaimed aloud.

“What’s that about?” came in a brisk, masculine voice.

Startled, Gale sprang to her feet.

“As you were,” said the voice.

She found herself looking not into the face of a gremlin but at the colonel, their colonel, he of the hairy legs and the tommy gun over his shoulder—the little native girl’s dream of a great man, a real colonel.

“As you were,” the colonel repeated, dropping into the big easy chair at her side.

CHAPTER IV Burma or Bust

CHAPTER IV

Burma or Bust

Gale was surprised and startled by her visitor. She had talked to the colonel once, and that only the day before. He had suggested that she go out and practice with Sergeant MacBride, and had named the hour. She had kept the appointment. But after that? Thrills and chills still coursed through her being at thought of those exciting moments.

The colonel carried no tommy gun now, and his dress was no longer unconventional. She found it difficult to believe that this immaculately dressed officer, whose buttons and insignia shone, and whose pink cheeks were the last touch in perfection, should ever have led a group of ragged barefooted men and girls down a river and over a mountain.

“Have good practice today?” he asked. A strange smile played about his lips.

“Yes. Ver—very good.” She swallowed hard. “Very fine practice, and—and” the words came unbidden “Grand hunting.”

He did not start or stare—merely smiled wisely—a smile that said plainer than words,—“Umm! You and I have a secret, a very fine secret.”

The colonel leaned 

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