hot up themselves
oncet. Then they'd know."

"This Goodman, now?" queried Ginsburg, trying to chamber many
impressions at once. "I don't seem to place him. He wasn't in B
Company?"

"Naw! He's out of D Company. He's a new guy. He's out of a bunch of
replacements that come up for D Company only the day before yistiddy.
Well, for a green hand he certainly handled himself like one old-timer."

Dempsey, aged nineteen, spoke as the grizzled veteran of many campaigns
might have spoken.

"Yes, sir! He certainly snatched you out of a damn bad hole in jig
time."

"I'd like to have a look at him," said Ginsburg. "And my old mother back
home would, too, I know."

"Your mother'll have to wait, but you kin have your wish," said Dempsey
gleefully. He had been saving his biggest piece of news for the last.
"If you've got anything to ask him just ask him. He's layin'
there--right over there on the other side of you. We all three of us
rode down here together in the same amb'lance load."

Ginsburg turned his head. Above the blanket that covered the figure of
his cot neighbour on the right he looked into the face of the man who
had saved him--looked into it and recognised it. That dark skin, clear
though, with a transparent pallor to it like brown stump water in a
swamp, and those black eyes between the slitted lids could belong to but
one person on earth. If the other had overheard what just had passed
between Ginsburg and Dempsey he gave no sign. He considered Ginsburg
steadily, with a cool, hostile stare in his eyes.

"Much obliged, buddy," said Ginsburg. Something already had told him
that here revealed was a secret not to be shared with a third party.

"Don't mention it," answered his late rescuer shortly. He drew a fold of
the blanket up across his face with the gesture of one craving solitude
or sleep.

"Huh!" quoth Dempsey. "Not what I'd call a talkative guy."

This shortcoming could not be laid at his own door. He talked steadily
on. After a while, though, a reaction of weariness began to blunt
Dempsey's sprightly vivacity. His talk trailed off into grunts and he
slept the sleep of a hurt tired-out boy.

Satisfied that Dempsey no longer was to be considered in the role of a
possible eavesdropper, Ginsburg nevertheless spoke cautiously as again
he turned his face toward the motionless figure stretched alongside him
on his left.

"Listening?" he began.

"Yes," gruffly.

"When did you begin calling yourself Goo