"Oh, I didn't mean come off the earth!" exclaimed Bob, with a laugh. "I meant stop making such gloomy predictions."
"Who is he?" asked Iggy.
"Who's who?" countered Bob.
"Dat Mr. Dixton," responded Iggy. "Does you mean Captain Frank Dickerson?"
"Oh, no! No!" laughed Bob. "I mean you are not to be so gloomy-Gus like."
"Gus? Gus? Iss he a pasteboy—I mean a doughboy, too?"
"Say, if I've got to go back and explain everything I'll never get this mud off!" laughed Bob. "All I meant was don't look on the dark side of things. Be a little happier, and you'll make me happier. Don't think, just because Roger and Jimmy haven't showed up, that they are dead or prisoners. They may be all right."
"I have a hope so," said Iggy, but the gloomy way in which he shook his head did not indicate that he was very sincere.
However, there was nothing that could be done about it, and Bob and Iggy just had to wait. Time, however, did not hang heavily on their hands, for there was never a moment of the day and very few moments of the night when there was not something to do. If it was not standing guard, doing sentry duty, digging trenches, or helping fit up dugouts, there were barbed-wire parties to become active in, listening-post duty to go out on, and the thousand and one things that a fighting army can always find to do.
Iggy and Bob performed their full share of all these tasks, and it was perhaps well that they could be kept so occupied. For, in spite of Bob's seeming cheerfulness, dark forebodings as to the fate of Jimmy and Roger would come to him.