Part 23 (1/2)

”All right. The belt buckle's barred, although it gave me a shock when the bullet met it. A small bullet went through the flesh of my left arm just above the elbow. It healed so fast that I've hardly noticed it, due, of course, to the very healthy and temperate life I've led. I suppose, George, it would have laid up a fellow of your habits for a week.”

”Never mind about my habits, but go on with the list of your wounds. A great beauty of mathematics is that it compels you to keep to your subject. When you're solving one of those delightful problems in mathematics you can't digress and drag in irrelevant things. Algebra is the very thing for a confused mind like yours, Frank, one that doesn't coordinate. But get on with your list.”

”When we were in pursuit my horse stumbled in a gully and fell so hard that I was thrown over his shoulder, giving my own shoulder a painful bruise that's just getting well.”

”We'll allow that, since it happened in battle. What else now? Speak up!”

”That's all. Three good wounds, according to your own somewhat severe definition of a wound. I'm one behind d.i.c.k, but I believe that when I was thrown over my horse's head I was hurt worse than he was at any time.”

”Frank Pennington, you're a good comrade, but you're a liar, an unmitigated liar.”

”George, if I weren't so tired and so unwilling to be angry with anybody I'd get up and belt you on the left ear for that.”

”But you're a liar, just the same. You're holding something back.”

”What are you driving at, you chattering Green Mountaineer?”

”Why don't you tell something about the time the trooper fell from his horse wounded, and you, dismounting under the enemy's fire, helped him on your own horse, although you got two wounds in your body while doing it, and brought him off in safety? Didn't I say that you were a liar, a convicted liar from modesty?”

Pennington blushed.

”I didn't want to say anything about that,” he muttered. ”I had to do it.”

”Lots of men wouldn't have had to do it. You go down for five good wounds, Frank Pennington.”

”Now, then, what about yourself, George?” asked d.i.c.k.

”One in the arm, one on the shoulder and one across the ankle. I don't waste time in words, like you two, my verbose friends. That gives the three of us combined twelve wounds, a fair average of four apiece.”

”And it's our great good luck that not one of the twelve is a disabling hurt,” said d.i.c.k.

”But we get the credit for the full twelve, all the same,” said Warner, ”and we maintain our prestige in the army. Our consciences also are satisfied. But the last two or three weeks of battles and marches have fairly made me dizzy. I can't remember them or their sequence. All I know is that we've cleaned up the valley, and here we are ready at last to take a couple of minutes of well earned rest.”

”Do you know,” said Pennington, ”there were times when I clear forgot to be hungry, and I've been renowned in our part of Nebraska for my appet.i.te. But nature always gets even. For all those periods of forgetfulness memory is now rus.h.i.+ng upon me. I'm hungry not only for the present but from the past. It'll take a lot to satisfy me.”

The briskness of the night also sharpened Pennington's appet.i.te. They were deep in autumn, and the winds from the mountains had an edge. The foliage had turned and it glowed in vivid reds and yellows on the slopes, although the intense colors were hidden now by the coming of night.

The wind was cold enough to make the fires feel good to their relaxed systems, and they spread out their hands to the welcome flames, as they had often done at home on wintry nights, when children. Beyond the trees the horses, under guard, were grazing on what was left of the late gra.s.s, but within the wood the men themselves, save those who were preparing food, were mostly lying down on the dry leaves or their blankets, and were talking of the things they had done, or the things they were going to do.

”I wonder what the bill of fare will be tonight,” said Pennington, who was growing hungrier and hungrier.

”I had several engraved menus,” said Warner, ”but I lost them, and so we won't be able to order. We'll just have to take what they offer us.”

”A month or so later they'll be having fresh sausage and spare ribs in old Kentucky,” said d.i.c.k, ”and I wish we had 'em here now.”

”And a month later than that,” said Pennington, ”they'll be having a roasted bull buffalo weighing five thousand pounds for Christmas dinner in Nebraska.”

”Nonsense!” exclaimed Warner. ”No buffalo ever weighed five thousand pounds.”

Pennington looked at him pityingly.