There was a pause, and then his mother deliberately put down the bundle she had been working with, and approached. She came and stood before him, with her back to the table as if for support. Danny did not look up into her face, though he saw her white, jewelled hands grasping the edge of the table, and they were strained and tense.
"My son," she said, "what is the matter with you?"
He was too full to answer.
"Danny," she began again presently and in that new voice, "you won't do this way—you will not!" And then suddenly a white, jewelled hand was struck fiercely upon the table, and the new voice exclaimed passionately:
"Daniel Harding, if you sit around and cry like a baby when you are called to the service of your country, I'll—I'll disown you, sir!"
"Mother!" And Danny sprang to her arms.
There were a few moments of sobbing, laughing confession from Danny, and then his mother explained to him her unexpected change of attitude toward scouting. Danger?—yes, of course she knew that this might involve danger to him, but this call was for no frolic—it was to the service of his country! He was her all, everything in the world to her, but the one thing which she could not, would not bear would be to see him turn "slacker" and coward when other mothers' boys—not ten years older than Danny—were already on the firing-line in France!
"Our part in this war is the old fight of '76, Danny"—she said to him—"nothing less than that! The Colonists fought to win independence for America. We are fighting now to save that independence won. And if it takes every man in America—every boy in America—if it takes you, Danny—there is just one answer for an American to give."
And then the two of them hurriedly finished tying up the bundle she had put aside. It was his kit for the expedition!
It was a newer, bigger ideal of patriotism which Danny Harding took with him into his service on Death Head Mountain. His mother, who loved him all too well, had yet sent him from her with nothing short of her positive orders to do his duty like a man.