d Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour after
hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing
into his right side and his head throbbing and aching after Canteen? He
thought over this for many nights, and the world became unprofitable to
him. He even blunted his naturally fine appetite with beer and tobacco;
and all the while the parrot talked at and made a mock of him.

The heat continued and the tempers wore away more quickly than before.
A Sergeant's wife died of heat--apoplexy in the night, and the rumor ran
abroad that it was cholera. Men rejoiced openly, hoping that it would
spread and send them into camp. But that was a false alarm.

It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the men were waiting in the deep
double verandas for "Last Posts," when Simmons went to the box at the
foot of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a
bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle.
Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their
nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four
clattered into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by his
box.

"Owl It's you, is it?" they said and laughed foolishly. "We thought
'twas"--

Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his fellows, what
would not the reality do?

"You thought it was--did you? And what makes you think?" he said, lashing
himself into madness as he went on; "to Hell with your thinking, ye
dirty spies."

"Simmons, ye so-oor," chuckled the parrot in the veranda, sleepily,
recognizing a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.

The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack
deliberately,--the men were at the far end of the room,--and took out
his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim!"
said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another
man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmon's head. The prompt
answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's
throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and the others scattered.

"You thought it was!" yelled Simmons. "You're drivin' me to it! I tell
you you're drivin' me to it! Get up, Losson, an' don't lie shammin'
there-you an' your blasted parrit that druv me to it!"

But there was an unaffected reality about Losson's pose that showed
Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamorin