Cameron had ceased to hear the voices. He was struggling with a difficult French idiom.
The stranger took his bearings deliberately and walked over to Cameron, sitting down with a friendly air on the nearest cot.
"Would you be interested in having one of my little books?" he asked, and his voice had a clear ring that brought Cameron's thoughts back to the barracks again. He looked up for a curt refusal. He did not wish to be bothered now, but something in the young man's earnest face held him. Y.M.C.A. men in general were well enough, but Cameron wasn't crazy about them, especially when they were young. But this one had a look about him that proclaimed him neither a slacker nor a sissy. Cameron hesitated: "What kind of a book?" he asked in a somewhat curt manner.
The boy, for he was only a boy though he was tall as a man, did not hedge but went straight to the point, looking eagerly at the soldier: "A pocket Testament," he said earnestly, and laid in Cameron's hand a little book with limp leather covers. Cameron took it up half curiously, and then looked into the other's face almost coldly.
"You selling them?" There was a covert sneer in his tone.
"No, no!" said the other quickly, "I'm giving them away for a promise. You see, I had an accident and one of my eyes was put out a while ago. Of course, they wouldn't take me for a soldier, and the next best thing was to be all the help I could to the fellows that are going to fight. I figure that book is the best thing I can bring you."
The manly simplicity of the boy held Cameron's gaze firmly fixed.
"H'm! In what way?" Cameron was turning the leaves curiously, enjoying the silky fineness and the clear-cut print and soft leather binding. Life in the barracks was so much in the rough that any bit of refinement was doubly appreciated. He liked the feel of the little book and had a curious longing to be its possessor.
"Why, it gives you a pretty straight line on where we're all going, what is expected of us, and how we're to be looked out for. It shows one how to know God and be ready to meet death if we have to."
"What makes you think anyone can know God on this earth?" asked Cameron sharply.
"Because I have," said the astonishing young man quite as if he were saying he were related to the President or something like that.