The editor seated himself and began to run a thin steel paper knife through one after another of several unopened letters.
"Barrow's," he answered, without turning around. "Barrow's hospital unit—leaves some time tonight; and Wade, the man listed to go from here, dropped a packing box on his foot. Barrow 'phoned me last night, and I've been looking for a suitable man all morning."
Nearly everyone in Hillsdale had heard that the great Barrow was heading a hospital unit, and the editor's nearest friends knew that he had been honored with permission to select one man from his own town. Now this man had come to grief! The Colonel looked across at Jeb. He saw at once a miraculous opportunity, and whispered:
"Helping about a hospital is a fine work, Jeb. Of course, it isn't like being with the Colors, but it means service—a very noble service!"
Jeb's mind had sprung farther ahead than the nobility of service. It saw a place of comparative safety, far from the range of shells; there would be no charging over parapets, no bullets would come ploughing through his stomach, no shrapnel would tear shreds from his face! He thought much of that face. He could actually be in France and come home a hero! Besides all these considerations, he would escape the draft!
The Colonel, watching closely, read each argument, each emotion. For a moment his own fearless, honest eyes drew to shiny points and his lips, had he not controlled them, would have curled in disgust. But he could not quite forget that Jeb was the son of his old friend; aye, and his own friend. As there had been two personalities in Jeb, tugging for and against enlistment, so were there two beings in the Colonel's soul condemning and pleading for this weakling Hercules. He now turned anxiously to the editor, asking:
"You haven't found anyone, have you, Amos?"
"Eh? No, Roger, I haven't. Our boys, who are not already pledged to the Colors, prefer taking their turn with the draft."
"Then wire Barrow quickly that Jeb takes Wade's place!"
Mr. Strong swung about in his chair.