“Billy, don’t you want to live to get back home?  Don’t you know what it will mean to your mother and your father if anything happens to you?  Well, what’s the use of tempting fate?  If it will come, it will come, and nothing you or I can do will prevent it; but there is something that helps a man—­call it luck, or fate, or providence, or what you will—­by keeping the idea firmly fixed in your mind that nothing can harm you.”

I knew in my heart that nothing could prevent the dread messenger’s visit when it was actually headed for one, still my philosophy had taught me that so far as I myself was concerned my determination to think positively about the matter had sustained me through many a trying moment when the fires of hell had surged about me, and up to that time I was as much alive as any man could wish to be, and I determined to stick to the philosophy, no matter how foolish it might seem when the cold light of logic played upon it.

A deep sigh was his answer.  I continued for half an hour to encourage and jolly him, telling him that dreams always went by the contrary, and my efforts were rewarded by his growing calm and promising he would fight tooth and nail against the thought, and we finally dropped off to sleep.

“Show a leg, Grant, show a leg, cookhouse up,” was yelled at me as daylight broke, and up we tumbled.  I was much relieved that Billy was looking and acting as if nothing whatever disturbed him, except the possibility of being a second behind anybody else in getting to the cookhouse.

Although we were bosom friends and companions, there was just a shade of the big-brother idea on my part of the fellowship, and I kept track of him whenever and wherever I could.  This was not alone because of the congenial soul that was within him, but, also, because I had learned through him to know his mother.  And such a mother!  It is a forward impetus on life’s journey to know such a woman, and I knew instinctively she would expect me to keep an eye on him.  And so, while I was fulfilling my duty, I had the double satisfaction of having combined with it the pleasure of association with a fellow whose tastes and ideals were absolutely akin to my own.  There was no confidence we did not share; we laid bare our hearts to each other; in short, we were chums in every sense that the word implies.

Billy was ready for breakfast a second or two ahead of me, and he started up the steps, out through the door of the dugout.  “I’m coming,” I called, and grabbed my mess-tin and went up the steps two at a time.  I reached the top and the door of the dugout, and, simultaneously, a roar and rush of air struck me, and I was thrown to the floor, stunned for the moment.  My senses quickly recovered themselves, and I found my face and clothes dripping with blood.  I commenced looking for my wound, but failed to find any.  The discovery momentarily mystified me.  It was blood, but whose?  There was no report