"We hain't got no salt to put on their tails," explained Glover, grinning more with pain than with his joke. "I'd ate 'em widout salt," said Sweeny. "If the tails was feathers, I'd ate 'em." "We must camp early, and try our luck at hunting," observed Thurstane. "I go for campin' airly," groaned the limping and tottering Glover. "Och! yees ud like to shlape an shnore an' grunt and rowl over an' shnore agin the whole blissid time," snapped Sweeny, always angered by a word of discouragement. "Yees ought to have a dozen o' thim nagurs wid their long poles to make a fither bed for yees an' tuck up the blankets an' spat the pilly. Why didn't ye shlape all ye wanted to whin yees was in the boat?" "Quietly, Sweeny," remonstrated Thurstane. "Mr. Glover marches with great pain." "I've no objiction to his marchin' wid great pain or annyway Godamighty lets him, if he won't grunt about it." "But you must be civil, my man." "I ax yer pardon, Liftinant. I don't mane no harrum by blatherin'. It's a way we have in th' ould counthry. Mebbe it's no good in th' arrmy." "Let him yawp, Capm," interposed Glover. "It's a way they hev, as he says. Never see two Paddies together but what they got to fightin' or pokin' fun at each other. Me an' Sweeny won't quarrel. I take his clickatyclack for what it's worth by the cart-load. 'Twon't hurt me. Dunno but what it's good for me." "Bedad, it's betther for ye nor yer own gruntin'," added the irrepressible Irishman. By two in the afternoon they had made perhaps fifteen miles, and reached the foot of the mountain which they proposed to skirt. As Glover was now fagged out, Thurstane decided to halt for the night and try deer-stalking. A muddy water-hole, surrounded by thickets of willows, indicated their camping ground. The sick man was _cached_ in the dense foliage; his canteen was filled for him and placed by his side; there could be no other nursing. "If the nagurs kill ye, I'll revenge ye," was Sweeny's parting encouragement. "I'll git ye back yer scallup, if I have to cut it out of um." Late in the evening the two hunters returned empty. Sweeny, in spite of his hunger and fatigue, boiled over with stories of the hairbreadth escapes of the "antyloops" that he had fired at. Thurstane also had seen game, but not near enough for a shot. "I didn't look for such bad luck," said the weary and half-starved young fellow, soberly. "No supper for any of us. We must save our last ration to make to-morrow's march on." "It's a poor way of atin' two males in wan," remarked Sweeny. "I niver thought I'd come to wish I had me haversack full o' dried bear."