octor gruffly.

"Corporal May, too," said Lennox, with a troubled look at the other
patients occupying the hut. "Are you much hurt, May?"

For answer the man glared at him and turned his face away, making Lennox
wince again and look at the other patient. But he was lying fast
asleep.

"Rather a queer welcome," said the young officer, turning now to
Dickenson, and once more his eyes dilated with a wondering look. "Why,
Bob, you're not going to call me a coward too?"

"Likely!" said the young man gruffly.

"Don't stand talking to him, Mr Dickenson," said the doctor
sharply.--"Here, lean on the orderly, sir; he'll help you into the next
hut. I want to try and diagnose your case."

"Yes--please if it's necessary," said Lennox, catching at the orderly as
if attacked by vertigo.--"Thank you, old fellow," he whispered huskily
as Dickenson started forward and caught him by the other arm. "Not much
the matter. Gone through a good deal. Faint. The sun. Touch of
stroke, I think."

He hung heavily upon the pair, who assisted him out into the next hut,
while Roby's accusation was reiterated, the words ringing in his ears:
"Coward!--cur!--runaway!" till he was out of sight, when Roby sank back
exhausted.

"Don't question him, and don't let him talk about what he has gone
through," said the doctor a short time later, when he had made his fresh
patient as comfortable as circumstances would allow, and he was growing
drowsy from the sedative administered. "It's not sunstroke, but a
mingling of the results of exposure and overdoing it altogether. I
don't quite understand it yet, and I want to get at the truth without
asking him."

"Oh doctor! don't you join in thinking the poor fellow has been behaving
in a cowardly way."

"Tchah! Rubbish! What is it to me, sir, how the man has been behaving?
He's all wrong, isn't he?"

"Yes; terribly."

"Very well, then, I've got to put him all right. If he has committed
any breach of discipline you can court-martial him when I've done."

"But, hang it all, doctor!" cried Dickenson fiercely, "you don't believe
he's a coward?"

"Humph! Very evident you don't, my lad," said the doctor grimly.

"Of course not."

"That's right; then stick to it. I like to see a man back up his
friend."

"Who wouldn't back him up?" cried Dickenson.

"Oh, I don't know. It's very evident that Roby won't."

"Roby's as mad as a March hare," cried Dickenson.

"Well, not quite; but he's