"I found a wild bee gum down thar," he went on in a dead, level tone. "This hyar's wild honey. Thet-thar idee of givin' the ants a party hain't so damned bad atter all, is it?" The major rolled over and presented his back to his enemy. He laughed and his tormentor did not know that it was the laughter of uncomprehending delirium. To Newt, it seemed a misplaced sense of humor. "Wake me up for breakfast," murmured the major. "I want to take a nap now." Later, Falkins awoke to a lucid interval, and saw nothing of his mad companion. But gradually his mind began to collect scattered fragments of memory, and the thing he had laughed at rose up to torture him. He remembered the threat now, and he remembered the dead face of the man they had found tied to a tree. He lay alone, shivering in weakness and harried by a terror he would not have cared to confess. An ant crawled over one wrist, and he leaped up, choking off a wild scream. It seemed that he could feel them crawling and stinging in thousands through his nostrils and nibbling at his brain. His fever would return, but for the present he lay sane and clammy with chill. When the cool of the evening came, Newt reappeared. But his face, too, had lost its maniac glare. It was the face now of a man unutterably weary--as though all day he had been in some great travail. "I reckon we mout as well be hikin'. Kin ye walk?" he inquired curtly. "I'm not going to walk," retorted the officer belligerently. "This is as good a place to die as any." "I ain't goin' ter hurt you," said Newt Spooner in a tired voice. "I reckon the time ain't come yet, after all." "When will it come?" demanded the other, amazed beyond belief at this sudden change of front. "Thet's my business. I hates you worse than pizen ... but I can't hurt you while we're both wearin' this uniform. It beats hell how much a man gets to thinkin' about a damn' pair of government breeches!" He stopped off as if in embarrassment. Then he added: "Besides, I'm beholden to your wife. She gave me a lift once on the high-road." Two days later, just as the platoon, flushed with a success which the others had missed, was preparing to break camp for the day's march, two men, both gibbering foolishly, both shambling on unsteady feet, tattered, thorn-torn and scalded with fever, dragged themselves, in the locked embrace of drunken men, up into sight of the outposts, and collapsed. One wore a major's uniform, and one had on his sleeve what was left of a sergeant's chevrons. CHAPTER XXIII