Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/263

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ordered. There was something he had not forgotten.

John Brown arose and shambled to where the lieutenant and the doctor were sitting. He looked sheepish and frightened. The lieutenant stood, to front him; did not acknowledge his salute, but scanned him sternly, his haggard eyes commencing to blaze bluely.

"Brown, you this day presumed to make use of language that was seditious and mutinous; I then passed it over, pitying your situation and laying your conduct to your distress from hunger, rather than to desire to sow discontent amongst the party. Had I saved provisions for ourselves, whilst you were starving," reproached the lieutenant; "had we been marching along light and at our ease, whilst you were weighed down with your burden, then you would have had some excuse for your remarks: but when we all were equally hungry, weary, worn, and charged with burdens which I believe my natural strength is less able to bear than any man's in the party—when we are always foremost in breaking the road, reconnoitering and enduring the fatigues of the chase, it was the height of ingratitude in you to let an expression escape that showed discontent. Your ready compliance and firm perseverance I had reason to expect, as the leader of men who are my companions in misery and danger. But your duty