"Why, that's dinged strange!" uttered the old hunter. "A lot of your camp wagons went by yesterday, and there was a feller from one of 'em, who told me he belonged to C Company, and that C Company was supposed to be the Americans, and B Company was the Japs. Now, I've always hated the Japs!"
"Did you ever see any Japanese, sir?" asked Lieutenant Prescott.
"Nope, young man; but what's that got to do with hating 'em? Well, as I was saying, that C Company feller on one of the wagons told me about B Company being the Japs, and he asked me if I would like to help along the licking of B Company. So I done the best I could."
"By sending two young B Company soldiers across the wilderness, to that elevation over yonder?" inquired Captain Cortland, who had heard the conversation.
"The C Company feller told me that it would help lick the company that was standing for the Japs," explained the old man, his face an interesting study as he gazed from one officer's face to another.
Captain Freeman had not yet heard the story of how Hal and Noll had come to be in his camp at dark. He had been denied that knowledge by the laughing officers of B Company. But Freeman had been near enough to hear the hunter's explanation, and now C Company's commander thought he saw a whole lot of sudden light.
"Pass the word for Corporal Raynes!" he shouted.
Raynes heard, and shivered. Yet he was a soldier; there was but one thing to do. Quaking in his restored shoes, Raynes rose and marched briskly forward, halting and saluting before his captain.
"Is this the man who was on one of the wagons, and who told you to send two B Company men hiking across a wilderness of rock?" asked Captain Freeman.
"That's the very man," declared the old hunter.