Billy stopped eating and slid over a few feet nearer. His blue eyes were beginning to shine.
"Wouldn't it be great if each man who has pledged his life to serve his country would do some deed which would save life instead of taking it?" he demanded. Then Billy paused and grew hot and cold by turns. He was not very sure of what he was trying to argue except in a vague fashion, and there was something about his last remark which held a suggestion of treason. He did not intend being disloyal. It was only that his preconceived ideas of right and wrong had been greatly troubled by the present war, and Billy was not willing to accept conditions as he found them, possessing the spirit which must solve its own problems.
He reddened as he found his new acquaintances staring at him suspiciously.
"Then you think peace brings the great mass of the people better fortune than war?" asked the other man, who had been quiet until now. He was a little, dark man, probably of Italian origin.
Billy hesitated. "I don't know," he answered, "I only believe peace should make men wiser and kinder to each other. But recently everything has gotten so dreadfully mixed in my mind, I can't be sure of anything. Perhaps I am mistaken."
"War has to be, young man," Billy's mild-mannered friend announced, nodding his head.
"Yes, that is what everybody says," the boy agreed.
Then the somewhat pointless conversation was obliged to end, as the hour for lunch had passed.
Among the experiences which Billy Webster was particularly enjoying at this time were his long walks back and forth from the place where he was spending his nights to the scene of his daily labors.
For, literally, he only spent his nights at the Sunrise camp. He arrived at home after the others had finished dinner, and rose and went away each morning just after daylight. But instead of the long, fatiguing walks, added to the unusual work of the war camp, injuring Billy's health—never had he appeared so strong and well.