y
oath.

"I ought to have stayed, maybe," he thought, "but I've been doing with
so little sleep, my head was feeling dirty queer; and the doctor sent
me. Collapse, of course; temperature ran down to normal, and poor Tooley
didn't notice, and him too weak to talk! Well, I hope I git the G boys
through, that's all I ask!"

He went over to the next cot, where lay the nearest of the G boys,
greeting him cheerily. "Hello, Dick?"

Dick was a handsome young specter, just beginning to turn the corner in
a bad case of typhoid fever. His blue eyes lighted at Spruce's voice;
and he sent a smile back at Spruce's smile. "Did you get some sleep?"
said he. "What's that you have in your hand?"

"That's milk, real milk from a cow. Yes, lots of sleep; you drink that."

The sick man drank it with an expression of pleasure. "I don't believe
any of the others get milk," he murmured; "save the rest for Edgar."

"Edgar don't need it, Dick," Spruce answered gently.

Dick drew a long, shivering sigh and his eyes wandered to the screen.
"He was a soldier and he died for his country jest the same as if he
were hit by a Mauser," said Spruce--he had taken the sick boy's long,
thin hand and was smoothing his fingers.

"It's no more 'an what we all got to expect when we enlist."

"Of course," said Dick, smiling, "that's all right, for him or for me,
but he--he was an awfully good fellow, Chris."

"Sure," said Spruce. "Now, you lie still; I got to look after the other
boys."

"Come back when you have seen them, Chris."

"Sure."

Spruce made his rounds. He was the star nurse of the hospital. It was
partly experience. Chris Spruce had been a soldier in the regulars and
fought Indians and helped the regimental surgeon through a bad attack of
typhoid. But it was as much a natural gift. Chris had a light foot, a
quick eye, a soft voice; he was indomitably cheerful and consoled the
most querulous patient in the ward by describing how much better was his
lot with no worse than septic pneumonia, than that of a man whom he
(Spruce) had known well who was scalped. Spruce had enlisted from a
Western town where he had happened to be at the date of his last
discharge. He had a great opinion of the town. And he never tired
recalling the scene of their departure, amid tears and cheers and the
throbbing music of a brass band, with their pockets full of cigars, and
an extra car full of luncheon boxes, and a thousand dollars company
spending money to t