"Humph!" Then they fell back with the wagon again.
"There doesn't seem to be any way to beat the clock to breakfast," observed Dan, after he had walked several rods down the road.
"I've talked with old soldiers," Dick went on, "who have told me all sorts of tales of war time, about the commissary train not catching up with the fighting line for four days at a stretch.
Yet here you fellows feel almost ill if you have to put off breakfast half an hour.

What kind of men would you boys make if it came to the stern part of life ?" "If going without breakfast is part of the making of a man," said Danny Grin solemnly, "then I'd rather be a child some more." "You always will be a child," Dave observed dryly.

"Birthdays won't make any great difference in your real age, Danny boy." "After that kind of a roast," grinned Reade, "I believe I'll take a reef in a few of the bitter things I was about to say." Dick laughed pleasantly.

Somehow, with the walk, all soon began to feel better.

That first fainting, yearning desire for food was beginning to pass.
"Do you know what the greatest trouble is with the American people ?" asked Dick, after they had covered a mile.
"I don't," Tom admitted.