Once on French soil, he spent March in an American school and April in a quiet sector under French supervision. On the first day of May his new commission arrived, and he became Captain Mahan.
It was clear by this time that he had the knack of command, but of all his men none was so devoted to him as his Indian orderly, O. Fisher. With equal coolness the young brave would polish his shoes or call him a blind Bwan. By Bwan he meant a Sioux, a contemptible weakling. His captain was a blind Bwan whenever he could not see as far as O. Fisher, which was often.
It was no use to discipline O. Fisher. He was an enlisted man, and knew his rights. He recognized the competency of the medicine men in Washington to declare war, but he was quite sure of his own right to go or stay according as they furnished him, or failed to furnish him, a decent chief. So far as O. Fisher could see, Captain Mahan was the only man in the army worth following, for the rest had all been brought up within doors. He paid small attention to Lieutenant Gregg, because Gregg thought that Fisher meant a fisherman, whereas it meant an animal as retiring as a fox and sometimes as fierce as a weasel.
The first of June came, and with it marching orders. They proceeded to the vicinity of Mezy, on the southern bank of the Marne east of Chateau-Thierry. That evening Marvin explained to his orderly what it was all about. A Sioux named Ludendorf was driving at Paris, the city where the girl kissed O. Fisher, and was now within fifty miles of it. The Bwan’s advancing line was forty miles long and noisy. It had got as far as the river, but must get no farther.
O. Fisher listened with interest. He sat there on the straw in the dugout, holding a shoe and a brush. His head was thrown back, and there was a deep vertical line between the eyebrows.
“How would you like to be my guide?”
“I am,” said O. Fisher, whose memory for the sacred word “sir” was none of the best.
“No, if you act as guide you will not have to shine shoes.”
O. Fisher scorned to reply, and resumed his labors.
“Very well, then. Tomorrow you can begin to get acquainted with this terrain. Some day I shall ask you whether you can find a clump of trees in the night.”