through anything--says we make better time when the natives are
shooting----"

"I saw how he went through the bunch that started to help you unpack,"
Cairns said laughing.

... Theirs was a quick love for each other. They had not known how
lonely their hearts were, until they encountered this fine mutual
attraction. Together they cleaned up the supper things, and spread
their blankets side by side.... Later, when only the infantry sentries
were awake, and the packers' running guard (and a little apart, the
interminable glow from Healy's cigarettes), the two were still
whispering, though the day had been terrific in physical expenditure.
So aroused and gladdened by each other were they, that intimate matters
poured forth in the fine way youths have, before the control and
concealment is put on. Grown men imprison each other.... Their low
tones trembled with emotion while the night whitened with stars. Cairns
wished that something of terror or intensity might happen. He hated a
knife to the very pith of his life, but now he would have welcomed a
passage of steel in the dark--for a chance to defend the other.

And the cook had that absolute, laughing sort of courage. Cairns
divined this--a courage so sure of itself that no boastful explanations
were needed. They talked about men, books, their yearnings, the recent
fights. Cairns was enthralled and mystified. Bedient did not seem to
hope for great things in a worldly way, while the correspondent was
driven daily by ambition and its self-dreams. Life apparently had shown
this cook day by day what was wisest and easiest to do--the ways of
little resistance. He appeared content to go on so; and this challenged
Cairns to explain what he meant to do with the next few years. Bedient