"I just got a letter from Billy Waldon," went on Bart. "He's been down on the Mexican border chasing Villa and his gang. Says he's in fine shape and feeling like a two-year-old. His regiment's been ordered back, and he'll be with us soon. Says he's honing to get a crack at the Germans."
"Billy's a fine fellow," said Frank heartily, "and the experience he's been getting in Mexico ought to help him a lot when he gets in the French trenches, if he ever does."
"He'll get there all right," asserted Bart. "I hear that the first thing the Government will do will be to put the national guard regiments in the regular army. You know the old Thirty-seventh that Billy belongs to is mostly made up of Camport boys. I've half a mind to join myself as soon as they get back."
"That might not be a half bad idea," said Frank. "Although my own thought was that as soon as the President called for troops I'd join the regular army at once. But it's as broad as it is long, for, as you say, the first thing the Government is likely to do is to make regulars of the national guard. And it won't be a bad thing either, for they've had lots of drilling and will be a heap better at the start than raw recruits who don't know the first thing about a gun."
"This experience the boys have had on the border hasn't done them any harm either," replied Bart. "Of course most of them haven't had any fighting to do, but they've had to be prepared to fight and the outdoor life has made them tough and strong. Billy says you'll hardly know the boys for the same fellows when they get back."
"Oh they're a lot of heroes—I don't think," sneered Nick Rabig, who was working near by and had heard part of the conversation.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Frank indignantly.
"Just what I say," retorted Rabig. "They went down to Mexico to catch Villa, didn't they? Well, why didn't they do it?"
"They would if they had stayed long enough," replied Bart. "The Government called them back."
"Sure the Government called them back," said Rabig with a sardonic grin. "It got cold feet. It saw that Mexico wasn't going to back down, and so it backed down itself. Now if Germany had started out to catch Villa, it would have caught him."