Forbes did not appear, and Luke was too proud to try a second time to question Betty about him; but reporters came and sent in urgent requests for a statement from the company. Luke refused to see them. It was his turn to refuse the newspapers.
"Better feed 'em a little pap," Breil advised.
"I won't so much as look at them," said Luke.
"They'll knock us if you don't."
"That can't hurt us. I won't see them and you're not to talk to them either, Breil."
He began to chafe under the delay. He made the rounds of the mill again and smoked incessantly at cigars that he found in a box in Forbes's desk. He bolted a cold lunch sent in at noon, and he wondered why the soldiers were late.
The soldiers came at two o'clock. Out in the street there were some derisive shouts, and then the regular tramp of marching feet. Luke hurried to an office above Forbes's, a room furnished with a small desk at one side, a large table in the center, and a few chairs, and there, from a window, saw the column of men in khaki, advancing four abreast, down the street.
"They're nothing but a lot of boys," he said as, when they drew nearer, he looked at their young faces. "It's a shame to send a lot of kids like that into—a mix-up of this kind."
He received the Captain and the first-lieutenant in the main office. The Captain had taken off his broad-brimmed service hat and was mopping his face with a blue bandana handkerchief.
"Phew!" he said. "This looks as if it was goin' to be the real thing!"