“I’ve no objiction to his marchin’ wid great pain or annyway Godamighty lets him, if he won’t grunt about it.”

“But you must be civil, my man.”

“I ax yer pardon, Liftinant.  I don’t mane no harrum by blatherin’.  It’s a way we have in th’ ould counthry.  Mebbe it’s no good in th’ arrmy.”

“Let him yawp, Capm,” interposed Glover.  “It’s a way they hev, as he says.  Never see two Paddies together but what they got to fightin’ or pokin’ fun at each other.  Me an’ Sweeny won’t quarrel.  I take his clickatyclack for what it’s worth by the cart-load.  ’Twon’t hurt me.  Dunno but what it’s good for me.”

“Bedad, it’s betther for ye nor yer own gruntin’,” added the irrepressible Irishman.

By two in the afternoon they had made perhaps fifteen miles, and reached the foot of the mountain which they proposed to skirt.  As Glover was now fagged out, Thurstane decided to halt for the night and try deer-stalking.  A muddy water-hole, surrounded by thickets of willows, indicated their camping ground.  The sick man was cached in the dense foliage; his canteen was filled for him and placed by his side; there could be no other nursing.

“If the nagurs kill ye, I’ll revenge ye,” was Sweeny’s parting encouragement.  “I’ll git ye back yer scallup, if I have to cut it out of um.”

Late in the evening the two hunters returned empty.  Sweeny, in spite of his hunger and fatigue, boiled over with stories of the hairbreadth escapes of the “antyloops” that he had fired at.  Thurstane also had seen game, but not near enough for a shot.

“I didn’t look for such bad luck,” said the weary and half-starved young fellow, soberly.  “No supper for any of us.  We must save our last ration to make to-morrow’s march on.”

“It’s a poor way of atin’ two males in wan,” remarked Sweeny.  “I niver thought I’d come to wish I had me haversack full o’ dried bear.”

The next day was a terrible one.  Already half famished, their only food for the twenty-four hours was about four ounces apiece of bear meat, tough, ill-scented, and innutritious.  Glover was so weak with hunger and his ailments that he had to be supported most of the way by his two comrades.  His temper, and Sweeny’s also, gave out, and they snarled at each other in good earnest, as men are apt to do under protracted hardships.  Thurstane stalked on in silence, sustained by his youth and health, and not less by his sense of responsibility.  These men were here through his doing; he must support them and save them if possible; if not, he must show them how to die bravely; for it had come to be a problem of life and death.  They could not expect to travel two days longer without food.  The time was approaching when they would fall down with faintness, not to rise again in this world.

In the morning their only provision was one small bit of meat which Thurstane had saved from his ration of the day before.  This he handed to Glover, saying with a firm eye and a cheerful smile, “My dear fellow, here is your breakfast.”