"I beg your pardon," said the professor without averting his look. "I have the habit of close observation. And," he proffered the flask afresh, "the more you drink of that, the less I'll have to carry home." Budd poured a generous portion into a tin cup and stared reflectively at the bright cap. His next remark, mellowed by whiskey, had a genial candor. "Say! if I'd a popped you over, as I had a mind to when you came along the trail, just think what I'd a missed!" "And so you had a mind to pop me over?" queried the other. "May I ask why?" Having finished his labeling, he was at leisure to regard his companion still more closely. "There's fellers prowling in the timber I ain't got no use for," the cook explained, drinking. "But you're all right! You haven't got a cigar handy, now, have you?" The scientist was well supplied, and as the cook bit off the end of a large and black cigar he sighed with satisfaction. "I get the horrors sometimes," he explained. "I get as scary as a cottontail. Them quaking asps is enough to drive a feller crazy, anyhow." "There's nothing like a little whiskey in such cases," remarked the professor, filling the extended cup. "If this keeps up, one of us is liable to get drunk," remarked Budd. "That's a handy flask of yours. Come all the way from New York?" "From Richmond, I believe," responded the other. "My brother found it on a battle field and sent it home to me." "I take it you wasn't there yourself," the Scorcher chuckled. "No," said Professor Sands. "I was in bad health at the time." "So was a lot of others," sneered Budd. "I wasn't feeling what you might call well myself; but I stuck to it till they biffed me in the leg--the hounds!--and put me out of business." "Of course, you draw a pension," ventured the professor. "No," said the cook, "I never asked for no pension. They've given one to about every feller what wasn't dead when the war broke out, but there hasn't been a bill passed yet that takes me in." "Indeed?" His listener was politely observant. "Yes, that's the truth," went on the cook. "I declare I feel real dopy or dotty or something. They pensioned every beat that came back with a knapsack full of rebel watches, but they left out old Jim. He don't wear no medals; he don't parade on Decoration Day to scatter posies; he don't get no free beer while the band plays 'Georgia'--'Hurrah for the flag that makes us free!'" he chanted hoarsely. "Hurrah for the Devil! that's what I say. Hurrah for the man without a pension!" "You interest me," interposed Professor Sands.