He looked at her a moment curiously, frightened. She slipped her arm under the pillow. Then she held the cup to his lips while he drank from it, lowered his head again gently, and drew her arm back. The head on the pillow turned faintly. "Don't go." She smiled as one does toward a child. "It won't be for long or very far, I just thought I might cook you something." It was twilight when she came back. She had been to get milk, cheese, and bread. Back in the cottage she built up the fire and warmed part of the milk. On a shelf she had found a candle, which she lighted and held above the face of the sleeping boy. Cautiously she touched his forehead with her fingers. "It's not fever," she decided. "It's only hunger and heart break." This was a healthful sleep, she knew. She hated to disturb him. Twice she looked at the beautiful platinum watch she had brought out in her hand bag. Finally she took him gently and raised the cup of warm milk to his lips. He drank it gulpingly. "Listen," she said finally, "you're going away from here. You're going back East; where you and I both came from-back home. You're going back tonight. In two days you will be there; you will smell the wind that comes off the harbor and see the gray wings of gulls." She stopped a moment, and her eyes stared out through the open door across the prairie. "I don't care what you've done; I don't care much what you do. But I can't see you suffer. Tonight at nine o'clock the flyer comes through Albia. It slows down at the bridge. You can get aboard, and tomorrow you can get a train for Duluth." A long moment he watched her in silence. "You're crazy." "Yes, I am. But I know what I'm doing. And now it's time we were starting." She helped him get up and make himself presentable. Almost like some one hypnotized he followed her. Then she made some bread and cheese sandwiches and ordered him to drink the rest of the milk. In the moonlight they followed the road toward the bridge where the flyer slowed down. Her will alone seemed to carry him. He did not even stumble. At the bridge they stopped. The train was not in sight yet. "Listen," she said, "this is your ticket." She pressed a piece of paper into his hand and something thin and hard and shiny. "Five dollars," she said, "and-this watch. You can raise enough on it in Duluth for a ticket East-and then some. When you get to New York it's up to you. I can't help you. But you've got a chance there." A long time he looked down at her in the moonlight. She was almost pretty then; all the hard lines were gone, and the weari-ness. "Why are you doing this for me?" he asked. "It's silly," she said. "For a memory. He was like you. His family sent him to sea, and the night he left he gave me this." Her finger touched the watch he was holding. "It was all that he had." Down the rails shot the first gleaming spears from the engine and the thunder of wheels sounded like a battery of cannon. They gripped each other's hands with the fierceness of parting. "It's all even now," she said, "or as even as things come in this world." "Aida," he cried, "I'm not worth it." "Yes, you are," she said; "anyway, I don't care." And then he was gone. A long time Aida Sparks stood by the track where the train moved eastward. She was alone and a long way from home. She was penniless, but she was at peace. Some way she would have to restore the money that Larry had stolen. Somehow she would have to invent a plausible story. But all that did not matter now. The boy she had rescued would be happy. He would fit some day into a niche where his talents would serve him and his fellows. But it was some one else Aida Sparks had sent back this night. She had sent back the boy who had kissed her goodby on a hot night in August before his boat sailed for Rio. He had worn a sailor's cap and middy. He was shipped as a common seaman on a dirty frigate for Rio, and his eyes had looked like the boy's she had sent back to life this evening. "Yes, I did it for you," she whispered. "It was crazy, but I did it for you." On Guard By Martin Graff I'VE done some dirty diggin', and I've toted some heavy loads, I've marched for many miles on slimy, muddy roads, I've loaded trucks and chopped up wood, and thought it mighty hard, But I'd sooner do them all at once than have to go on guard. By Sergeant H. J. Watson. It was one of those bitter wintry nights; his backbone was all a-chill. Harold Watson had been routed out of bed to go on guard. It wasn't the loss of the treasured 'shut-eye' he regretted, because he had become accustomed to that in these days of strife. But he knew within his soul that there was nothing quite so hard as to go on guard. He knew what it meant-being out alone at night; it meant walking up and down the trench, not speaking a word to anyone until the sergeant came around. It meant time to think, meditation. This was what Harold Watson disliked, being melancholy. It was cold. He was shaking like jelly and his feet were dead as stones. There were intermittent pools of filthy water on the trench floor. What a difference from the old days. His mind wandered back to Dartmouth. The big game; how he remembered it. The score was tied, one minute to play, the big crowd was hysterical. The ball was snapped, and the halfback broke loose. On he flew with the wings of a comet. He tried vainly to cover the cold white chalk lines which meant so much to his hopeful team. His legs pounded as his slender hips swayed and twisted behind perfect interference that had taken months of dreary practice to perfect. He was through the line, through the narrow holes which his interference had opened. He was now in the open; there was the opposing quarterback to stop him. He had no interference now; he must fight it out alone with the opposing back. Twenty yards to go-ten, and the opponent in hot pursuit as he fairly flew to save his team from defeat. The five yard line! All hoping, praying, or cursing the gods of Luck as the quarterback dove at the flying hips of the ball-carrier, and with a mighty drive that carried both men several feet away with the impact, he threw his man; the ball-carrier was down, he crawled in an attempt to score. The hundred and eighty pound quarterback fell on the man with the ball, but the ball was over, the game was ended. How clearly he now saw it, the big dance, he the college hero. How vividly he remembered meeting Randolph Johnson, the stock broker. His acceptance of the position as bond salesman. But he had failed as he had in several other jobs which he had tried. Truly he was a success on the gridiron; but how he could play that game -football. How happy he was when given the position as head coach at Boston University. He remembered his chagrin at being discharged for subsidizing, buying football material. It had been a raw deal; the alumni had bought those players, he hadn't known a thing about it. Still he was discharged. It was unexplainable. Then came the war. Snap! what was that! Just his imagination he thought; still he had better keep awake; the Huns might pull something. It would be just like them to start a scrap on a bum night like this; but then, this was war! What was that he heard, voices? Sure enough! He must sound the gong, the empty shell case hung up to warn the sleeping soldiers against midnight attacks. He turned, hesitated, startled at the burly German soldiers who blocked the way to the signal gong. Instantly he thought of