‘Do tell,’ remarked Ephraim.
‘I should say so,’ went on Lucius. ‘He’s a stark fighter, he is, and he keeps them down to it. They’re drilling and marching, and marching and drilling, all day long; and at night they have camp-fires, and sentries, and everything. You never saw such a show. And oh! Grizzly, what do you think? Captain Imboden let me fire off a cannon.’
‘Ye don’t say so!’ exclaimed Ephraim, his sallow face lighting up. ‘How many Yanks did ye shoot?’
Lucius burst out laughing. ‘Why, it wasn’t loaded, stupid,’ he said, ‘except with blank cartridge. But I touched her off, and she made an awful good row.’
‘Hyar I am,’ said Ephraim.
‘I reckon,’ said Ephraim simply, adding with some anxiety in his voice: ‘Then ye warn’t in no battle, Luce?’
‘Battle! No,’ answered Lucius. ‘There hasn’t been one so far, and I imagine they wouldn’t have had me around while it was going on. There’s sure to be one soon, though; so they all say. Don’t I wish we could be there to see it. There’ll only be one, you know,’ he added confidently. ‘We shall whip the Yanks, and then everybody will come home again.’
‘Thet’s so,’ remarked Ephraim sententiously, ‘’ceptin’ them as is killed, of co’se.’ He fell to considering the piece of wood which he held in his hand.
‘What are you making there?’ demanded Lucius.