"I don't know," answered Bert. "But we can ask. Asking won't do any harm."

"Will you ask him? Will you really?"

"Do you want to go? Without knowing any more about it than that?"

"More than anything else in the world. Do you think he will let me go,
Bert? Tell him that I'm not afraid--that I can be trusted to carry out
orders. You know I can do it, don't you, Bert?"

"Yes, I know you can do it. And I thought that you'd probably want to do
it. That's why I disobeyed orders and told you. I wanted to give you the
chance to volunteer."

"I wonder if the Captain'll just laugh and say that I'm a raw recruit."

"The Captain isn't that kind of man," answered Bert. "He doesn't laugh at a
fellow just because he wants to do something. And about being a raw
recruit.... It's my opinion that he'd rather send a recruit, if he's a good
man, than a trained soldier. Trained soldiers are too scarce. He was
willing to let me go because I volunteered months ago for any expedition
that was to be sent out. When the call came for a man from each company, he
called me into his tent, and just told me that I was going. Of course, a
man doesn't have to go. It's for volunteers only. You know what it might
mean if you got caught?"

"That we'd be held as spies. And perhaps...?"

"Yes."