Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/199

 "Yes, sir. The same here, sir."

"So ye didn't fetch in a buffler with that big pistol?" John Sparks bantered, of Stub.

"To-morrow," answered weary Stub.

"To-morrow is a grand time," said Baroney. "If there wasn't any to-morrow, I don't know what we'd do."

The supper to-night was a scant meal, for all: just a few mouthfuls of dried meat and a handful of parched corn. In the morning the doctor decided briskly.

"You've rations for only to-day, sergeant?"

"Yes, sir; and scarce that, but we can make 'em do."

"I feel sure that Baroney and the boy and I will find game before night. If we do, we'll come in with it. But you keep on, as Lieutenant Pike ordered, until you kill meat or until he joins you, and never mind our whereabouts. We'll take care of ourselves somehow, and I don't propose to come in unless loaded."

"You'll likely stay out, in the hills, sir, you mean?"

"That depends on the day's luck," smiled the doctor. "But even if we do, we'll be no worse off than Lieutenant Pike and Miller and Mountjoy. We're all rationed the same, and there's little to