"I don't know what it's all about," said Mollie, settling herself luxuriously to enjoy her own small pile of letters. "But I'll take your word for it, Betty, just the same."
And while they read the dusk came down upon them softly like a mantle, and the setting sun sent ruddy rays to touch their young, bowed heads.
The last paragraph of Allen's letter Betty read and reread, finally through a mist of tears that blurred the words and ran them in together.
"It won't be long," he wrote, "before we fellows will receive the orders that we've all been crazy for—the orders that will take us to the front. And then, Betty, there's not a Hun that can stand before me. For I've a memory, little girl, that will make me carry on to victory—and you. Will you be waiting for me, Betty, when it's over? Will you want me then? For I'm coming to you, little girl. As surely as the sun rises every morning and sets again at night, I'm coming to you. Betty, dear, I'm loving you—"
And Betty, raising a transfigured, tremulous face, gazed straight into the heart of the setting sun.
"Yes, I'll be waiting," she whispered to herself. "Oh, Allen, come back to me—come back to me—soon—"
And so, in the midst of stirring scenes, with martial music always ringing in their ears, with pride in the past and courage in the future, we once more wave farewell to our Outdoor Girls.