hey shoot him?"

"Over a mile."

"Hm! Hal must have had a long, heavy pack."

"The lieutenant was carrying the carcass when they reached camp,"
retorted Private Kelly. "The lieutenant did his full share in packing
the meat in. That lieutenant ain't a dude."

"I know he isn't," Noll nodded quietly. "Still I didn't suppose Hal
would feel like letting an officer make a pack animal of himself."

"Your bunkie ain't no dude, either, Sarge," continued Kelly. "Him and
the lieutenant are two men of pretty near the same color."

"White isn't a color, anyway," laughed Noll.

"Maybe it isn't," assented Private Kelly.

Noll turned to look at the descending sun.

"My, I don't believe I've ever been as hungry as I am now," complained
Noll.

"Nothing doing, Sarge, until the rest of the crowd comes in," grinned
Slosson.

"Oh, that's easy enough for you fellows to say," grunted Noll. "You two
have been in camp all day, and you had a big, filling, hot meal at noon.
All I had at noon was a hard tack and a half."

"You could have carried more," insisted Slosson.

"I had more, but I didn't find water anywhere and hard tack is
abominably dry stuff to get down without help."

"Go over to the bucket and help yourself to water now, Sarge," suggested
Private Kelly teasingly.

"I think I will," agreed Noll, turning.

"Take a lot of it," urged Slosson. "Water, when you get enough of it, is
mighty filling."

"I'll brain you, if you go on making fun of a hungry man," warned
Sergeant Noll Terry, as he reached for the dipper hanging on a nail
driven into a tree trunk.

"That would look like losing your temper," retorted Kelly. "Now, what
are you mad with us for, Sarge? Haven't we been in camp all day, working
like Chinamen just so you fellows can have something to eat when you get
back from the day's stroll?"

"Well, I'm back," argued Noll.

"And you'll eat, Sarge, when the rest eat."

"What's in that oven?" queried Noll, pausing before an Army cookstove.

"Mince pie," remarked Kelly quietly.

"Oh, you fiend!" growled Sergeant Noll. "To torment a hungry man with
lies like that!"

"Lies, eh?" roared the soldier. "A Kelly to stand by and have a sergeant
boy tell him his mother raised a family of liars. Ye sassenach, take one
peep--and then may yer stomach cave in before the meal's laid!"

Kelly cautiously opened the oven door for a brief moment, affording Noll
an instant's glimpse of three browning pies.

"And there's s