COLLOQUY IN THE BUNKS. 
77 
me into the tent. I think I must have strained some¬ 
thing, and gone off like in a kind of fit.’ 
“ Olilsen, who is as self-absorbed a man as I ever 
knew, replies by stating that his boots pinched him; 
to which poor Brooks, never dwelling long on his own 
troubles, says in a quiet, soliloquizing way, ‘ Yes, and 
Baker’s boots pinched him too; but it wasn’t the boots, 
but the killing cold outside of them. There was 
Pierre: his boots were moccasins, with deer-skin foot- 
rags, but he died of cold for all that; and there’s Mr. 
Wilson and me, both hanging on in neither one way 
nor t’other: it’s a question which of us lasts the longest.’ 
McGary, another bedridden, but convalescent, I hope, 
here raises himself on his elbows and checks Brooks 
for being so down in the mouth; and Brooks, after a 
growling rejoinder, improves his merry reminiscences 
by turning to me. 
“ ‘ Captain Kane, five nights to come one year, you 
came in upon four of us down as flat as flounders. I 
didn’t look at your boots, but I know you wore Esqui¬ 
maux ones. It was a hard walk for you, the greatest 
thing I ever heard tell off; but’ — here he begins to 
soliloquize—‘ Baker’s dead, Pierre’s dead, and Wilson 
and I-‘Shut up, Brooks! shut up!’ I broke 
in, whispering across the boards that separated our 
blankets; ‘you will make the patients uncomfortable.’ 
But no: the old times were strong upon him; he did 
not speak loud, but he caught me by both hands, and 
said, in his low bass, quiet tones, ‘ Doctor, you cried 
when you saw us, and didn’t pull up till we jabbed 
