Pinetop, with a wooden bucket on his arm, had plunged off in search of
water, and Dan and Jack Powell were sent, in the interests of the mess, to
forage through the surrounding country.
"There's a fat farmer about ten miles down, I saw him," remarked a lazy
smoker, by way of polite suggestion.
"Ten miles? Well, of all the confounded impudence," retorted Jack, as he
strolled off with Dan into the darkness.
For a time they walked in silence, depressed by hunger and the exhaustion
of the march; then Dan broke into a whistle, and presently they found
themselves walking in step with the merry air.
"Where are your thoughts, Beau?" asked Jack suddenly, turning to look at
him by the faint starlight.
Dan's whistle stopped abruptly.
"On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee," he replied at once.
"What's become of the waffles?" demanded Jack indignantly. "I say, old man,
do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves at
Chericoke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat--roast
beef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey--"
"Hold your tongue, won't you?"
"Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver the
Major a lecture on his extravagance."
"It isn't the Major; it's grandma," groaned Dan.
"Oh, that queen among women!" exclaimed Jack fervently; "but the wines are
the Major's, I reckon,--it seems to me I recall some port of which he was
vastly proud.
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