“Well, all I can tell you about the wound in my side is what the doctors and nurses here have said,” returned our hero calmly. “They all think I ought to stay in the hospital a little longer. They say they never heard of a fellow getting up so quickly and starting back for the front. But I’m tired of staying here doing nothing. I want to get with the rest of the bunch and see what is going on.
“But tell me about yourself, Nat,” continued Dave kindly. “Were you in a fight?”
“Yes, I was!” replied the other sourly.
“What, with the Huns?” questioned Dave incredulously. He could not understand how the money lender’s son had been able to get to the fighting front so quickly.
“No, it wasn’t at the front,” growled Nat. “I got into a row with our company cook. He served us some chow that wasn’t fit for a dog to touch. I laid him out good and proper, and he hit me with a frying-pan. He had no right to do it, and I reported him.”
“And was it the frying-pan that knocked out your wrist?” queried Dave, and now he had all he could do to keep from grinning in Nat’s face.
“Yes, it was. And it pained awfully at first. I used my first-aid kit, but it didn’t seem to do any good, and so I asked for permission to come up here to the hospital and have the wrist examined. I want it attended to properly, too! I don’t want any two-cent army doctor mussing with it. I don’t intend to go through life with a stiff wrist, or a crooked one, either. Do you suppose they’ve got any really good doctors at this place?”
“There are several surgeons here who are just as good as you’ll find anywhere, Nat. And the nurses and the nursing couldn’t be better. Then you came over on your own account?”
“Oh, I got permission, of course.”
“Is the camp you are at in this vicinity?”