“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 Dick.

“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 Dick.

“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 appetite.  But nature always gets even.  For all those periods of forgetfulness memory is now rushing 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 appetite.  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 grass, 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 Dick, “and I wish we had ’em here now.”