Then turning to the chief revenue officer, for whose timid lack of sagacity he had obviously the profoundest contempt, he asked:
"What's your program now?"
"Well I'm going to clear this whole mountain of stills."
"How long do you reckon it will take?" asked the Lieutenant.
"Well a week or two weeks perhaps."
"And what provisions have you made for your commissariat for such a length of time?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I have forty men here and I'm under your orders, to do whatever you say, but every one of my forty men has a mouth to feed, and under my orders I brought only three days' rations in the haversacks. If you intend to keep us up here for a week or two, ought you not to have made some provision for a food supply?"
"Why didn't you look after that?" asked the revenue officer.
"Because it was none of my business. I'm a soldier. I obey orders. My orders were to take three days' cooked rations and march my men up here to support the revenue officers in whatever they undertook."