“Those are the boys riding out there tonight,” she told herself. “Riding to battle.” Again she whispered: “I must not fail!” and the words of an old song seemed to sing themselves in her mind: “A charge to keep I have.”
The procession was endless,—guns, tanks, trucks, men, then more guns, tanks, trucks, men.
“No end to it,” Gale whispered, sliding down from her seat. “Come on. We’ve got to get back. Tomorrow I must be there in my hideout helping to keep the Jap bombers away.”
“Pete suggested this trail,” said Isabelle.
“We’ll have to try it.” Gale sighed. “We can’t mingle with tanks and guns, that’s sure.”
So, after snapping on a tiny flashlight, she led the way straight into new and surprising adventure.
CHAPTER XVII
Mysterious Temple
The trail the three girls followed was strange. It was not a road. There were no wheel tracks, and yet it was well traveled, trodden down and smooth by years of constant use. Here and there in soft places beside the path they found footprints of horses and donkeys.
“Perhaps this is the trail the colonel and you took down the mountain, Than Shwe,” Isabelle suggested.
“I don’t think it can be,” was the answer. “This is a good trail. Ours was horrible. We lost it more than once because it just vanished into nothing.”