“I—­I guess maybe that’s impossible,” said Mollie, her voice, even her straight little back betraying emotion.  “Nobody could be as b-brave as they are.”

“Well, we never know what we can do till we try, do we?” cried Betty, that indomitable fighting spirit of hers rising to the emergency.  “If we say we can’t, of course we can’t, but we can do our best, can’t we?  If the boys aren’t c-crying, why should we?”

“That’s the way to talk,” cried Mollie, straightening defiantly at the challenge.  “We don’t have to, and, what’s more, we won’t!”

CHAPTER XVII

TEARS AND PATRIOTISM

It was a valiant determination, that one to smile whatever happened; but somehow, ’way down in their brave hearts, the girls doubted a little.  They would do their best, but, after all, they were only human and there are times when to smile is the hardest achievement in the world.

“We’re—­we’re nearly there,” ventured Amy, after a little interval of silence, during which the girls had been busily gathering all their resources for the crisis just before them.  “Do you suppose we’ve got in ahead of the boys?”

“Goodness, I should hope so,” retorted Mollie, with a brief return of her old spirit.  “If this old car couldn’t make better time than boys on foot, I’d give it away to any one who’d take it off my hands.”

As she spoke the car swung around a sharp curve, and the station that had appeared so attractive to them several months ago, loomed into view.  To-day they greeted its appearance with as much enthusiasm as they would the electric chair.

A train was coming in, but it was not one for the troops.  It was a mixed train, composed of one passenger car, a baggage and smoker combined, and several milk cars.

“What a country-looking train,” was Amy’s comment.

She addressed Betty, but the Little Captain did not answer, for the reason that she was staring into the baggage car, the side door to which was wide open.

“See that man!”

She pointed to an individual who stood in the baggage car, his hands holding up a motorcycle.

“Oh, Betty, is it that man—­our motorcyclist—?” began Mollie.

“I am sure it is!” cried Grace.

The man was looking toward the end of the baggage car, so they got only a side look at his face.  Then the train moved away and was soon out of sight.

“Well, if that’s the fellow, he is gone,” murmured Amy.

“Now, maybe, we’ll never have a chance to catch him,” added Mollie.

“Oh, we’ll catch him yet,” declared Betty,

Under ordinary circumstances the Outdoor Girls would have given the incident considerable attention.  But now their thoughts were of the soldier boys so soon to leave.

“Didn’t the boys say they were entraining for Philadelphia?” asked Grace, trying hard to make her voice sound natural and merely conversational.