40 The girl's parents were allowed to come up.
"Mountain Glory will be grateful when she wakes," praised her mother.
"May she come and visit and express her gratitude? She, too, is a lover
of wisdom. She would like to speak with you."
41 "She may come any time!" agreed Gray Boar.
42 Mountain Glory DID visit him many times, and her desire to learn
thrilled Gray Boar. He tutored her in every subject, and prepared her
for the University, where she excelled. They corresponded often.
43 One day as one of the fighting people lay on his bunk reading, he
suddenly sat up. "Did any of you ever read this in The Book of The
Hawk?" he asked. "He's speaking of brave men in general, but listen to
this; 'Though the bravest of men fears them above all other things, he
will descend into a nest of vipers and lift out his mate when she is
but a child, and deliver her from certain death. For he shall see her
peril in a Dream. And while none other can find her, HE shall. There
can be no greater man than this.'"
44 The other men just looked at each other, smiled, and continued doing
what they were doing.
45 Now, one day, as Gray Boar was riding in a car checking his
outposts, an enemy fighter suddenly appeared in the sky above them.
Before the driver even knew it was there it swooped down and its
machine rifles tore into the car. The driver died instantly, and the
car rolled off the road, crashing into the rocks.
46 Gray Boar was rushed to a nearby hospital. The Doctors did what they
could, but the bullets had chewed up one leg so badly that there was
only one thing they could do.
47 Gray Boar was not one to whimper about a lost leg. "Anyway!" he
remarked, "I only lost the bottom half, not all of it. And they missed
something else! We must be grateful, mustn’t we?"