It’s a young Greek that used to be in his engineerin’ class, back in the dear old college days.  He says Skid’s just the man he wants to come help him patch up the railroad that the Turks have been puttin’ on the blink as they dropped back towards headquarters.  Would he?  Why, him bein’ railroad construction expert of the Corrugated, this was right in his line!  Sure he would!

And when Mrs. Mallory sees him again at lunchtime he’s all costumed as a Major in the Greek army, and is about to start for the scene of atrocities.  That’s Skid, all over.  He wasn’t breathin’ out any idle gusts, either.  He not only rebuilds their bloomin’ old line better’n new, so they can rush soldiers and supplies to the front; but after the muss is all over he springs his order book on the gover’ment and lands such a whackin’ big contract for steel rails and girders that Old Hickory decides to work day and night shifts in two more rollin’ mills.

Course, since it was Mr. Robert who helped me root for Skid in the first place, he’s tickled to death, and he tells me confidential how they’re goin’ to get the directors together at a big banquet that evenin’ and have a reg’lar lovefeast, with Skid at the head of the table.

Just now I finds Mr. Robert pumpin’ him for some of the details of his experience over there, and after I lugs in an atlas they sent me out for, so Skid can point out something on the map, I just naturally hangs around with my ear stretched.

“Ah, that’s the place,” says Skid, puttin’ his finger on a dot, “Mustapha!  Well, it was about six miles east from there that we had our worst job.  Talk about messes!  Those Turks may not know how to build a decent railroad, but believe me they’re stars at wrecking a line thoroughly!  At Mustapha they’d ripped up the rails, burned the ties, and blown great holes in the roadbed with dynamite.  But I soon had a dozen grading gangs at work on that stretch, and new bridges started, and then I pushed on alone to see what was next.

“That was when I got nearest to the big noise.  Off across the hills the Turks were pounding away with their heavy guns, and I was anxious for a look.  I kept going and going; but couldn’t find any of our people.  Night was shutting in too, and the first thing I knew I wasn’t anywhere in particular, with nothing in sight but an old sheep pen.  I tried bunking there; but it wasn’t restful, and before daylight I went wandering on again.  I wanted to locate our advance and get a cup of coffee.

“I must have gone a couple of miles farther, and it was getting light, when a most infernal racket broke loose not one hundred yards ahead.  Really, you know, I thought I’d blundered into the midst of a battle.  Then in a minute the noise let up, and the smoke blew away, and there, squatting behind a machine gun up on the side of a hill, was one lone Greek soldier.  Not another soul in sight, mind you; just this absurd, dirty, smoke-stained person, calmly feeding another belt of cartridges into his gun!