“I guess maybe he ain’t so dead sure that Hatton bunch won’t git him for this, anyway,” Casey said.  Then, raising his voice:  “Goin’ home, Buzz?”

“Yeh.”

But he did not.  If they had watched him they would have seen him change his lounging gait when he reached the corner.  They would have seen him stand a moment, sending a quick glance this way and that, then turn, retrace his steps almost at a run, and dart into the doorway that led to the flight of wooden stairs at the side of the Golden Eagle clothing store.

A dingy room.  A man at a bare table.  Another seated at the window, his chair tipped back, his feet on the sill, a pipe between his teeth.  Buzz, shambling, suddenly awkward, stood in the door.

“This the place where you enlist?”

The man at the table stood up.  The chair in front of the open window came down on all-fours.

“Sure,” said the first man.  “What’s your name?”

Buzz told him.

“Meet Sergeant Keith.  He’s a Canadian.  Been through the whole game.”

Five minutes later Buzz’s fine white torso rose above his trousers like a great pillar.  Unconsciously his sagging shoulders had straightened.  His stomach was held in.  His chest jutted, shelf-like.  His ribs showed through the pink-white flesh.

“Get some of that pork off of him,” observed Sergeant Keith, “and he’ll do in a couple of Fritzes before he’s through.”

“Me!” blurted Buzz, struggling now with his shirt.  “A couple!  Say, you don’t know me.  Whaddyou mean, a couple?  I can lick a whole regiment of them beerheads with one hand tied behind me an’ my feet in a sack.”  He emerged from the struggle with his shirt, his face very red, his hair rumpled.

Sergeant Keith smiled a grim little smile.  “Keep your shirt on, kid,” he said, “and remember, this isn’t a fist fight you’re going into.  It’s war.”

Buzz, fumbling with his hat, put his question.  “When—­when do I go?” For he had signed his name in his round, boyish, sixth-grade scrawl.

“To-morrow.  Now listen to these instructions.”

“T-to-morrow?” gasped Buzz.

He was still gasping as he reached the street and struck out toward home.  To-morrow!  When the Kearney girl again stepped out of the tree-shadows he stared at her as at something remote and trivial.

“I thought you tried to give me the slip, Buzz.  Where you been?”

“Never mind where I’ve been.”

She fell into step beside him, but had difficulty in matching his great strides.  She caught at his arm.  At that Buzz turned and stopped.  It was too dark to see his face, but something in his voice—­something new, and hard, and resolute—­reached even the choked and slimy cells of this creature’s consciousness.

“Now looka here.  You beat it.  I got somethin’ on my mind to-night and I can’t be bothered with no fool girl, see?  Don’t get me sore.  I mean it.”