All the circumstances contributed to make us introspective and psychological in our conversation. The long-legged mountaineer with the deep voice was telling some entirely inconsequent story about somebody who wasn’t known to any of us, and none of us was listening. After a while he said: “He was that sort of a feller that never felt fear in his life.” From Joe: “There never was any such fellow.” The long mountaineer: “Well, that’s what he _said_, anyhow.” From Joe: “He lied, then.” “Well,” continued the long-legged mountaineer, “that’s what he said, and he sort o’ lived up to it. If he had any fear, he didn’t show it till that time I was tellin’ you about, when he went all to pieces and showed the white feather.” “There,” growled Joe, “what did I tell you? He was lying all the time.” The postscript philosopher on the other side of the fire broke in, saying: “Well, maybe his breakfast went bad on him that morning. An overdone egg would make a coward out of the Duke of Wellington.” Joe made the general reflection that “some people locate their courage in their transverse colons.” “What’s a transverse colon?” asked one of the mountaineers. Joe got up, stretched himself, and made no answer. Perhaps none was expected. “Well,” asked the long-legged mountaineer, “ain’t they people that don’t feel no fear?” The glib little fellow quickly responded: “Let’s find out. Let’s hold an experience meeting. I suppose we’re a pretty fairly representative body, and I move that each fellow tells honestly how he feels when he is going into battle; for instance, when the skirmishers are at work in front, and we know that the next two minutes will bring on the business.” “Infernally bad,” growled Joe; “and anybody that pretends to feel otherwise lies.” The postscript philosopher replied: “I never saw _you_ show any fear, Joe.” “That’s because I’m too big a coward to show it,” said Joe. Even the two reticent mountaineers understood that. One of them was moved to break the silence. At last he had, if not a thought, yet an emotion to stand sponsor for utterance. “_I_ always feel,” said he, “as though the squegees had took hold of my knees. There ain’t anything of me for about a minute--exceptin’ a spot in the small of my back. I always wish I was a woman or a baby, or dead or something like that. After a while I git holt of myself and I says to myself, ‘Bill, you’ve got to stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder.’ After that it all comes sort of easy like, you know, because the firin’ begins, and after the firin’ begins you’re doin’ somethin’, you see, and when you’re fightin’ like, things don’t seem so bad. I s’pose you’ve all _noticed_ that.” From Joe: “In all the works on psychology it has been recognized as a universal principle, that the mind when occupied with a superior consideration is able to free itself from considerations of a lesser sort.” The mountaineer looked at him helplessly and said nothing.