As the small squad swung around the turn in the road they were delighted to see that Sergeant Mullins was in charge.  He brought the boys to a sharp halt at sight of them, and came forward to meet them, saluting gravely.

“Are you in trouble?” he asked, with his quiet smile and a glance at the stalled machine.  “May I help?”

“Oh, would you?” cried Betty, her pretty forehead puckered.  “We do want to get back before the storm breaks.”

Without a word, the young fellow removed his jacket and examined the machine carefully.  Then, with equal gravity, he wormed his way under the car.

In what seemed to the girls no more than a minute, he reappeared and smiled at them.

“I guess it’s all right now,” he assured them with another punctilious salute.  “If I might suggest that there’s no time to be lost—­” with a significant glance toward the lowering sky.  For answer, Mollie threw in the clutch and the machine purred evenly.  Then, with a little impulsive gesture, she turned to the sergeant.

“It’s—­it’s a long way to Camp Liberty,” she said, with pretty hesitation.  “Won’t you let us show you how grateful we are by letting us take you there?”

“Please do,” urged Betty.

He considered a moment, then with another of his grave smiles saluted once more and turned to the boys who stood waiting in the road.

“Pile in, fellows!” he said.  “We’ll just about make it before the storm.”

Then, while the boys obeyed, scrambling in any way, and Betty and Grace squeezed themselves into the front seat, Sergeant Mullins leaned over and said, very quietly: 

“Thank you.”

CHAPTER XIV

THE REINS TIGHTEN

“A week!” sighed Betty.  “Oh, Mollie dear, a week’s such a very little time!”

“Goodness, it isn’t even that now,” Mollie returned, dropping a stitch in the sweater she was making and not even noticing it—­an almost unheard of procedure.  “That is,” she added, with a slight little flicker of hope, “if you’re sure you heard the major aright, Betty.  Mightn’t he have been speaking of something else?”

“Well, I told you what he said,” answered Betty, a trifle impatiently, for she also had dropped a stitch and saw before her the weary process of ripping out two whole rows of her helmet—­and helmets were such mean things to make, anyway!

“When he spoke of a week,” she added, ripping vindictively, “and then said that the boys would be glad the waiting was over, it seems to me there’s just about one conclusion we can come to.”

“Oh, all right, but you needn’t be so cross about it,” returned Mollie, who, being very cross herself, could not make allowance for the malady in any one else.

“Have you seen any of the boys lately?” she asked, after an interval of deep concentration.  “We’ve been kept so busy here at the Hostess House lately with these other boys that our boys might as well be dead and buried for all I’ve seen of them.”