You're too much
hardened now to be hurt seriously by wet clothes."
Dick sat down with his back against the tree, and, despite his soaked
condition, slept as soundly as Pennington. When he awoke in the morning
the hot sun was shining again, and his clothes soon dried on him.
He felt a little stiffness and awkwardness at first, but in a few minutes
it passed away. Then breakfast restored his strength, and he looked
curiously about him.
Around him was the Northern army, and before him was the vast battlefield,
now occupied by the foe. He heard sounds of distant rifle shots,
indicating that the skirmishers were still restless, but it was no more
now than the buzzing of flies. Pennington, coming back from the hospital,
hailed him.
"George has come to," he said. "Great deed of yours last night, Dick.
Wish I'd done it myself. They let old George talk just a little, but
he's his real old Vermont self again. Says chances were ninety-nine and
a half per cent that he would die there on the battlefield, but that the
half per cent, which was yourself, won. Fancy being only half of one
per cent, and doing a thing like that.
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