‘Waal, ye wouldn’t feel the ninety-nine, after ye’d got comfortably done with the first,’ said Ephraim with one of his quiet grins. ‘But it don’t foller, because we got into one rumpus up in the clouds, thet we’d immediately git inter another. We wouldn’t go so high for one thing.’
‘No, no, I tell you,’ cried Lucius, almost as terrified at the prospect as he had been at the reality. ‘I wouldn’t get into the awful thing again to save my life.’
Ephraim looked at him silently for a moment. Then he said with a little sigh: ‘Waal, Luce, I reckon ye won’t be put ter it ter make the choice, fer by this time I should say old Blue Bag has either been busted by thet pesky cunnel, or took inter camp by the men.’
‘Oh!’ said Lucius regretfully, ‘I am real mean, Grizzly, after all the trouble you took to make it.’
‘Waal, waal, I ain’t keerin,’ answered Ephraim hastily. ‘It’s gone now, and thar’s an end er it. Ye’ll oblige me, Luce, if ye don’t say no more about it.—Hark!’ as the bugle sounded once more. ‘Thet tells us we’d better quit.’
‘I wonder what it means,’ pondered Lucius, rising to his feet.
‘What, thet call?’ answered Ephraim. ‘Breakfast, I ’magine. I know I feel it must be somewhar about that time. Got yer watch?’
‘No,’ replied Lucius; ‘I forgot that, like everything else, in my hurry to leave home.’
He thought for a minute and added: ‘Say, Grizzly, how are we to know but what that bugle is being blown in our own lines somewhere? It’s as likely as not.’
‘Thar’s suthin’ in what ye say,’ answered Ephraim. ‘We sutt’nly don’t know whether old Stonewall is ahead of us, or behind, or to the right or to the left. We don’t know nuthin’, and we can’t see nuthin’ fer this pesky wood shuttin’ out the sky. Ef we could see the sun, we might git an idee of the lay of the land. We’ll move on, anyway.’