"Money couldn't buy Hero!" exclaimed Lloyd.
"Now what would you do," said Kitty, who was always supposing impossible things, "if some old witch would come to you and say, 'You may have your choice? a palace full of gold and silver and precious stones and give up Hero, or keep him and be a beggar in rags?"
"I'd be a beggah, of co'se!" cried Lloyd, warmly, throwing her arm around the dog's neck. "Think I'd go back on anybody that had saved my life? But I wouldn't stay a beggah," she continued. "I'd put on the Red Cross too, and we'd go away where there was war, Hero and I, and we'd spend ou' lives takin' care of the soldiahs. I wouldn't have to dress in rags, for I'd weah the nurse's costume, and I'd do so much good that some day, may be, somebody would send me the Gold Cross of Remembrance, as they did Clara Barton, and I'm suah that I'd rathah have that, with all it means, than all the precious stones and things that the witch could give me."
"When did Hero save your life?" asked Joe, who had not heard the story of the runaway in Geneva.
"Tell us all about it, Lloyd," asked Mrs. Walton. So Lloyd began, and the group around the fire listened with breathless attention. And that was followed by the Major's story, and all he had told her of St. Bernard dogs, and of the Red Cross service. Then the finding of the Major by his faithful dog on the dark mountain after the storm. Betty's turn came next. She repeated some of the stories they had heard on shipboard. Mrs. Walton added her part afterward, telling her personal experience with the Red Cross work in Cuba and the Philippines.
"That is one reason I took such a deep interest in your little entertainment," she said, "and was so pleased when it brought so much money. I know that every penny under the wise direction of the Red Cross will help to make some poor soldier more comfortable; or if some sudden calamity should come in this country, before it was sent away, your little fund might help to save dozens of lives."
The fire had burned low while they talked, and Elise was yawning sleepily. Miss Allison looked at her watch. "How the time has flown!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Where is the bugler of this camp? It is high time for him to play taps."
Ranald ran for his bugle, and the clear call that he had learned to play when he was "The Little Captain," in far-away Luzon, rang out into the dark woods. It was answered by the same silvery notes. Mrs. Walton and Miss Allison looked at each other in surprise, for the reply was no echo, but the call of a real bugle, somewhere not far away.
"Oh, we forgot to tell you, Aunt Mary," said Malcolm, noting the surprised glance, "It's a regiment of the State Guard, in camp over by Calkin's Cliff. We boys were over there this morning. They made a big fuss over us when they found that Ranald was General Walton's son and we were his nephews. They wanted us to stay to dinner, and when they found out that you were coming to camp here, the Colonel said be wanted to come over here and call. He used to know you out West."
"Colonel Wayne," repeated Mrs. Walton, when Malcolm finally remembered the name. "We knew him when he was only a young cadet at West Point. The General was very fond of him, and I shall be glad to see him again."