Read "In the Saddle" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Deck and Artie Lyon were not veterans in military service; but on several occasions during the preceding six months they had been within the reach of flying bullets. They had not become hardened to the whizzing, boring sound they make in their passage through the air, for they carried wounds and death in their train; but they had considered and talked about the chances of being hit, and fully realized the possible consequences.
"We are in the hands of the good Lord," Noah Lyon used to say; "and if it be his will that we suddenly pass the portals that divide the seen from the unseen, or that we languish for weeks or months upon the couch of pain, we can only submit to the divine will; and all we have to do is faithfully to discharge our duty to God and our country. God and our country! Let this be our watchword, boys; and with it on our tongues and in our hearts, we ought to fear no danger."