"Ain't got the money, sir," he replied cheerfully. "Neringis and sich--like is a horful price in this Gordforsaken spot, an' Jennie's been a bit ailin'; won't eat nothing else."
"Well, you'll be getting your stripes soon, I expect, if you go on as you are doing," I remarked.
He flushed up. "I 'opes so, sir," he said modestly. "Jennie 'u'd set store by a striped sleeve, females being built that way."
My prophecy proved correct. Dy'sy was made a corporal, and before long, in the Border campaign which the cold weather brought us, found himself a sergeant, and so eventually in charge of a telegraph station on the top of one of the passes to our rear.
It was an important post to keep open, since on the integrity of the wire through a mile or so of singularly difficult country hung the certainty of speedy relief, should any kind of disaster overtake our little force, which was intimidating the tribes in the valleys beyond.
And disaster did overtake it, chiefly by reason of a terrific snowstorm which swept over it early in February--a snowstorm which paralysed progress, and made all thoughts turn to the probability of that mile of telegraph wire remaining intact.
No supplies could, of course, be sent up, so the men in the station must either starve or return, if, indeed, they had not been overwhelmed already. The latter seemed the most likely, since, though the through wire remained open, not a signal came from the station.
"An avalanche most likely," said the Adjutant. "The station was built, I always said, in the wrong place. What luck the wire isn't damaged as yet. It won't be long before it is, I'm afraid."
It was, however, still going strong when four men, one badly frost-bitten, made their way into camp. They had started five, they said, by Sergeant Bell's orders, after they had with difficulty extricated themselves from the ruins of the house, which had been completely smashed up by a tremendous avalanche. It was impossible, Dy'sy had said, to keep the post and six men also, so he had given them what supplies he could spare--the store was luckily uninjured--and bidden them take their best chance of safety at once.
As for his, it seemed but slender, as I felt when, a fortnight later, we managed to cut our way through the drifts that lay round the hollow where the station had stood. Across this hollow the through wire still stretched, and quite recently someone had evidently been at work upon it, for tools lay on fresh frosted snow. But all was still as the dead, quiet as the grave. We found Dy'sy lying on his face in the store many feet below the snow surface. The steps cut down to it were worn with the passing of his feet, but he did not move when we bent over him; something, however, cuddled close in his arms, woke and jibbered at us angrily. It was Jennie, dressed for warmth in every rag of blanketing available. She was as fat as a pig, and the charcoal embers in the tin can hung round her neck were not yet quite cold. But Dy'sy was skin and bone; yet the Irish doctor, as he bent hastily to examine him, said, cheerfully: "Annyhow, his love for the baste may have saved his life; she's kept his heart warm whatever."