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THE GREAT ADVENTURE
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was that much. And so he put up the very best bluff that he could at being a whole man and a sound man while he gathered wood for a night fire, and prospected for a place to spread the beds and find comfort. He had a feeling that he did not quite deserve the thing that was happening to him. He had been wondering if he would be forced to crawl away among the bushes like a whipped dog and in the chill of the night find a certain but painful release. This was not exactly as he had expected things to happen. He was going to have a supper of hot food and a blanket. In deference to his white face and shaking hands, he had been offered a choice location close to the camp fire, so there was no reason why to-morrow should find him any worse for the experience.

Ann Brunson was a jolly soul. She was everybody’s friend. She persisted in calling Jamie “You Mr. Soldierman,” and when she saw how very white and uncertain on his feet he was, she mercifully gave him a seat and set him to peeling potatoes, while she left her daughter and her husband to do the rougher work of completing the camp.

As he had made his way down the driveway from the hospital to the road, it had occurred to Jamie MacFarlane that for a man in his condition to walk out of the only shelter on earth to which he was entitled without a penny in his pockets was a Great Adventure. As he sat peeling potatoes for Ann Brunson while her daughter and her husband showed him all the tricks that could be concealed in and around the body of a five-passenger car, the neat