"But what's he doing with that mite of a French child?" Tom asked himself, staring in wonder and perplexity. "A cunning little girl she seems to be; but a battlefield isn't just the place for such an innocent. Poor thing! I suppose she's lost all her kin, and Jack brought her along because he couldn't let her stay at the ruins of her home and starve."
He was so filled with joy over the coming of his chum, who did not seem to be wounded in the least, that everything else was forgotten.
"Letters from home, Jack, old scout; hurry your stumps!" he called out, waving the epistles above his head.
Jack, still in his pilot's dress, was so eager to hurry that he picked up the little six-year-old French child, and ran the last fifty yards.
"Did you get any yourself, Tom?" he demanded, as he came up; and then immediately added: "I see you have some, and by the same token one of them has a French stamp on it—from Nice!"
"Oh, it's Bessie Gleason," said Tom with a twinkle in his eye. "You remember my telling you she promised to write to me if I'd answer and let her hear what stunts the air boys were pulling off over here in the Argonne. Let you read it if you care to, Jack."
"Very good of you, Tom," grinned the other. "But excuse me while I look over my own letters. And say, perhaps you'll make friends with this little girl here until I get through. I've got something to tell about her that will give you a thrill, I reckon."
It was just like Jack to say enough to set his chum guessing, and then leave him "up in the air" so to speak. Tom looked again at the child. He could see that he had made no mistake when thinking she was winsome, at first sight. He also knew that it would be impossible to make Jack talk until he had read several times over the letter Bessie had written to him, and it was a very fat letter.
"Come and make friends with me, little girl," Tom said. "Can you speak English, I wonder, or will I have to try my stumbling French on you? What is your name?"
"It is Jeanne, M'sieu!" lisped the child, sweetly, and Tom was more than ever drawn toward her when he saw the appealing smile on her face.