The Soldier of the Valley | Page 8

land where I
knew the ways better and was less likely to arouse higher criticism. I
told them of the stirring times in Cuba, till the day came when we
stormed the hill, and they had to carry me back to the sea. I told them
how lucky I was to get to the sea at all, for often I had closed my eyes,
worn out by the pain and the struggle for life, little caring whether ever
again I opened them to the light. Then strength came, and hope, and I
turned my face to the North, toward the valley and home. It was hard to

come back on crutches, but it was better than not to come at all. It was
best, to have gone away, else I had never known the joy of the return,
and I was pretty sure to stay, now that I was home, but if they fancied
me dozing away my life at the store stove they were mistaken; not that
I scorned the learned discussion there, but the frosts were coming soon
to stir up sluggish blood, and when the guns were barking in the woods,
and the hounds were baying along the ridges, I would be with them.
I looked right at the girl when I said it. I was boasting. She knew it. She
must see, too, what a woful figure I should make with strong-limbed
fellows like Tim there, and strong-limbed hounds like old Captain, who
was lying at my side. But somehow she liked my vaunting speech. I
knew it when our eyes met.

III
The gate latch clicked. From the road Henry Holmes called a last
good-night, and Tim and I were alone. We sat in silence, watching
through the window the old man's lantern as he swung away toward
home. Then the light disappeared and without all was black. The
village was asleep.
By the stove lay my hound, Captain, snoring gently. He had tried to
keep awake, poor beast! For a time he had even struggled to hold one
eye open and on his master, but at last, overcome by weariness, his
head snuggled farther and farther down into his fore paws, and the tired
tail ceased its rhythmic beating on the floor.
What is home without a dog! Captain is happy. He smiles gently as he
sleeps, and it seems that in that strange dog-dreamland he and I are
racing over the ridges again, through the nipping winds, on the trail of a
fox or a rabbit. His master is home. He has wandered far to other
hunting grounds, but now that the tang is in the air that foretells the
frost and snow, he has come again to the dog that never misses a trail,
the dog that never fails him.

The hound raised his head and half opened one eye. He was sure that I
was really there, and the gleam of white teeth showed a broadening
dog-smile. And once more we were away on the dreamland
trail--Captain and I.
"He's been counting the days till you got home, Mark," said Tim,
holding a burning match over my pipe. "It was a bit lonely here, while
you were gone, so Captain and I used to discuss your doings a good
deal after the rest of the place had gone to bed. And as for young
Colonel, why he's heard so much of you from Captain there, I'm afraid
he'll swallow you when he gets at you in the morning."
Young Colonel was the puppy the returning soldier had never seen. He
had come long after I had gone away, and as yet I knew him only by his
voice, for I had heard his dismal wails down in the barn. In the
excitement of the evening I had forgotten him, but now I raised a
warning finger and listened, thinking that I might catch the appealing
cry. And is there any cry more appealing than that of a lonely puppy?
There was not a sound outside, and I turned to Tim.
My brother lighted his pipe, and leaned back in his chair, and looked at
me. I looked at him very, very hard. Then we both began to blow
clouds of smoke in each other's faces. Hardly a word had Tim and I
passed since that day in the field when I drew the long twig that sent
me away and left him behind to keep our home. What a blessing a pipe
is at a time like this! Tim says more by the vigor of his smoking than
Perry Thomas could express in a year's oration. So we enshrouded our
emotions in the gray cloud; but if he did not speak, I knew well what he
would be saying, and the harder