"Damn those Hun outcasts!" the Colonel thundered, stamping from the room and banging the door after him.[Pg 63]
Jeb had stepped out upon the street with heavy feet. There was a dull weight at his heart; a sickening weariness permeated his entire body. The Colonel's words of warning to protect his stomach, the suggestion of bullets ploughing through it, caused him to stop and loosen his belt, which had begun to feel uncomfortable. He even ran his had over that part of his anatomy and found that it seemed actually to be tender.
"What the hell's the matter with me?" he asked himself. "I'm no coward; there hasn't been a coward in my family since the Crusade. No, it's the Colonel's eternal cackling that's got my goat!"
Heartened somewhat, he continued at a faster pace and soon turned through the side gate, thence across the porch into the Tumpson home.[Pg 64] Miss Sallie's voice from upstairs greeted him.
"Back safe, Jeb?"
The tenderness of her inquiry, subtly—though unintentionally—suggesting that the manor lord had returned and therefore the womenfolk must haste with ministering, greatly restored his self-esteem. Again the sword began to lose its tarnish; again it flashed in his hand with zest; again in imagination his company stepped off with the precision of regulars!
"War's declared," he shouted. "Colonel Hampton and Mr. Strong have patched up their fuss, and are going to recruit a company and make me captain. We'll be smashing the Germans inside a month!"
He wondered at the strength with which these last words were spoken, and was on the point of repeating them because their sound had caressed his pride,
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