“Ouch!” he exclaimed. “Feels worse than ten thousand needles jabbing through it.”
“Don’t worry,” answered Dave kindly. “We can carry you just as well as not, can’t we, Phil?”
“Of course we can!” was the quick reply. “It will take us a little longer to reach the others, but what of that?”
“Dave, I hope you get your watch back. I know you’d hate to lose it,” said Roger, as the others prepared to pick him up once more.
“Oh, I’m almost certain I know where I dropped it,” was the young sergeant’s reply.
The booming of the heavy artillery in the distance had ceased, but now came another crash off to the southward.
“That’s thunder!” exclaimed Phil. “Looks to me as if that storm might be coming back.”
“It certainly did let down while it was at it,” remarked Roger. “I didn’t have to crawl down to the brook to soak that bandage for my ankle. All I had to do was to draw it over the bushes and grass around me and it got soaked in a minute.”
The veering of the wind once again made the atmosphere pure around them, and for this, as they drank in the fresh air, they were exceedingly thankful.
“I’ll tell you one thing—fresh air is like fresh water,” remarked Phil. “You don’t know how good both of them are until you can’t get them.”