XIII. THE JEW SPY WRITES SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH A LONE, LORN WIDDER LADY."…

XIII. THE JEW SPY WRITES SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH A LONE, LORN WIDDER LADY."

"I WONDER what has become of our Jew spy, Shorty?" said Si, as he and Shorty sat on the bank of Duck River and watched the rebel pickets lounging under the beeches on the other side. "We hain't heard nothin' of him for more'n a month now."

"He's probably hung," answered Shorty. "He was entirely too smart to live long. A man can't go on always pokin' his finger into a rattlesnake's jaw without gittin' it nipped sooner or later."

"I'm looking fur a man called Si Klegg," they heard behind them. Looking around they saw the tall, gaunt woman whom they had turned back from entering the camp a few days before, under the belief that she was trying to smuggle in whisky.

"What in the world can she want o' me?" thought Si; but he answered:

"That's my name. What'll you have?"

A flash of recognition filled at once her faded blue eyes. Without taking her pipe from between her yellow, snaggly teeth she delivered a volley of tobacco-juice at an unoffending morning-glory, and snapped out:

"O, y'r him, air ye? Y'r the dratted measly180 sapsucker that bounced me 'bout takin' likker inter camp. What bizniss wuz hit o' your'n whether I tuk likker in or not? Jest wanted t' be smart, didn't ye? Jest wanted t' interfere with a lone, lorn widder lady makin' a honest livin' for herself and 10 children. My ole man ketched the black ager layin' out in the brush to dodge the conscripters. It went plumb to his heart an' killed him. He wa'n't no great loss, nohow, fur he'd eat more in a week than he'd kill, ketch, or raise in a year. When his light went out I'd only one less mouth to feed, and got rid o' his jawin' an' cussin' all the time. But that hain't nothin' t' do with you. You 's jest puttin' on a lettle authority kase ye could. But all men air alike that-a-way. Elect a man Constable, an' he wants t' put on more airs than the Guv- nor; marry him, an' he makes ye his slave."

"I should think it'd be a bold man that'd try to make you his slave. Madam," Si ventured.

"Y' she'd think," she retorted, with her arms akimbo. "Who axed y' t' think, young feller? What d' y' do hit with. Why d' y' strain y'rself doin' somethin' y' ain't used t'?"

It did Shorty so much good to see Si squelched, that he chuckled aloud and called out:

"Give it to him, old Snuff-Dipper. He's from the Wabash, an' hain't no friends. He's bin itchin' a long time for jest such a skinnin' as you're givin' him."

"Who air y' callin' Snuff-Dipper?" she retorted, turning angrily on Shorty. "What've ye got t' say agin snuff-dippin', anyway, y' terbacker- chawin', likker-guzzlin', wall-oyed, splay-footed, knock-kneed181 oaf? What air y' greasy hirelings a-comin' down heah fo', t' sass and slander Southern ladies, who air yo' superiors?"

"Give it to him, old Corncob Pipe," yelled Si "He needs lambastin' worse'n any man in the regiment. But what did you want to see me for?"

"I wanted to see yo' bekase I got a letter to yo' from a friend o' mine, who said yo' wuz gentlemen, an' rayly not Yankees at all. He said that yo' wuz forced into the army agin yo' will."

"Gracious, what a liar that man must be," murmured Shorty to himself.

"An' yo' rayly had no heart to fight for the nigger, an' that yo'd treat me like a sister."

"A sister," Shorty exploded internally. "Think of a feller's havin' a sister like that. Why, I wouldn't throw her in a soap-grease barrel."

"Who was this friend. Madam?" said Si, "and where is his letter?"

"I don't know whether to give it to yo' or not," said she. "Y're not the men at all that he ascribed to me. He said yo' wuz very good-lookin', perlite gentlemen, who couldn't do too much for a lady."

"Sorry we're not as handsome as you expected," said Si; "but mebbe that's because we're in fatigue uniforms. You ought to see my partner there when he's fixed up for parade. He's purtier'n a red wagon then. Let me see the letter. I can tell then whether we're the men or not."

"Kin yo' read?" she asked suspiciously.

"O, yes," answered Si laughingly at the thought almost universal in the South that reading and writing were—like the Gift of Tongues—a special182 dispensation to a few favored individuals only. "I can read and do lots o' things that common people can't. I'm seventh son of a seventh son, born with a caul on my head at the time o' the full moon. Let me see the letter."

She was not more than half convinced, but unhooked her dress and took a note from her bosom, which she stuck out toward Si, holding tightly on to one end in the meanwhile. Si read, in Levi Rosenbaum's flourishing, ornate handwriting:

"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteers, in Camp on Duck River."

"That means me," said Si, taking hold of the end of the envelope. "There ain't but one 200th Injianny Volunteers; there's no other Co. Q, and I'm the only Josiah Klegg."

The woman still held on to the other end of the letter.

"It comes," continued Si, "from a man a little under medium size, with black hair and eyes, dresses well, talks fast, and speaks a Dutch brogue."

"That's him," said the woman, relinquishing the letter, and taking a seat under the shade of a young cucumber tree, where she proceeded to fill her pipe, while awaiting the reading of the missive.

Si stepped off a little ways, and Shorty looked over his shoulder as he opened the letter and read:

"Dear Boys: This will be handed you, if it reaches you at all, by Mrs. Bolster, who has more about her than you think."183

"I don't know about that," muttered Shorty; "the last time I had the pleasure o' meetin' the lady she had 'steen dozen bottles o' head-bust about her."

"She's a Confederate, as far as she goes."

Si continued reading,

"which is not very far. She don't go but a little ways. A jay-bird that did not have any more brains would not build much of a nest. But she is very useful to me, and I want you to get in with her. As soon as you read this I want Si to give her that pair of horn combs I gave him. Do it at once. Sincerely your friend,

"Levi Rosenbaum."

Si knit his brows in perplexity and wonderment over this strange message. He looked at Shorty, but Shorty's face was as blank of explanation as his own. He fumbled around in his blouse pocket, drew forth the combs, and handed them to the woman. Her dull face lighted up visibly. She examined the combs carefully, as if fitting them to a description, and, reaching in her bosom, pulled out another letter and handed it to Si.

When this was opened Si read:

"Dear Boys: Now you will understand the comb business. I wanted to make sure that my letter reached the right men, and the combs were the only things I could think of at the moment. Mrs. B. will prize them, though she will never think of using them, either on herself or one of her shock-headed brats. I want you to play it on her as far as your consciences will allow. Pretend that you are awful sick of this Abolition war, and tired fighting for the nigger, and all that stuff. Make her the happiest184 woman in Tennessee by giving her all the coffee you can spare. That will fetch her quicker and surer than anything else. Like most Southern women, she is a coffee-drinker first and a rebel afterward, and if some preacher would tell her that heaven is a place where she will get all the Yankee coffee she can drink, she would go to church regularly for the rest of her life. Tell her a lot of news—as much of it true as you can and think best; as much of it otherwise as you can invent. Follow her cautiously when she leaves camp. Don't let her see you do so. You will find that she will lead you to a nest of spies, and the place where all the whisky is furnished to sell in camp. I write you thus freely because I am certain that this will get in your hands. I know that your regiment is out here, because I have been watching it for a week, with reference to its being attacked. It won't be for at least awhile, for there's another hen on. But make up to the old lady as much as your consciences and stomachs will allow you. It will be for the best interests of the service.

"Sincerely your friend, Levi Rosenbaum."

"I wonder what game Levi is up to?" Si said, as he stood with the letter in his hand and looked at the woman. "I'll give her all the coffee I can and be very civil to her, but that's as far as I'll go. The old rebel cat. I'll not lie to her for 40 Levi Rosenbaums."

"Well, I will," said Shorty. "You fix her up with the coffee, and leave the rest to me. I always had a fancy for queer animals, and run off from home once to travel with a menagerie. I'd like to take her up185 North and start a side-show with her. 'The Queen o' the Raccoon Mountains,' or the 'Champion Snuff-Dipper o' the Sequatchie Valley.' How'd that do for a sign?"

"Well, go ahead," said Si. "But expect no help from me."

"Mr. Klegg, when I want your help in courtin' a lady I'll let you know," said Shorty with dignity. Si went back to the tent to see about getting the coffee, and Shorty approached Mrs. Bolster with an engaging expression on his countenance. She was knocking the ashes out of her pipe.

"Let me fill your pipe up again. Madam, with something very choice," said he, pulling out a plug of bright natural leaf. "Here's some terbacker the like o' which you never see in all your born days. It was raised from seed stole from the private stock of the High-muk-a-muk o' Turkey, brung acrost the ocean in a silver terbacker box for the use o' President Buchanan, and planted in the new o' the moon on a piece o' ground that never before had raised nothin' but roses and sweet- williams. My oldest brother, who is a Senator from Oshkosh, got just one plug of it, which he divided with me."

"O, my! is that true?" she gurgled.

"It's as true as that you are a remarkably fine lookin' woman," he said with unblushing countenance, as he began whittling off some of the tobacco to fill her pipe. "I was struck by your appearance as soon as I saw you. I always was very fond of the Southern ladies."

"Sakes alive, air y'?" she asked; "then what air yo'uns down here foutin' we'uns fur?"186

"That's a long story, m'm," answered Shorty. "It was a trick o' the Abolition politicians that got us into it. I'm awful sick o' the war (that we hain't gone ahead and knocked the heads offen this whole crowd instead o' layin' 'round here in camp for months)" he added as a mental reservation, "and wisht I was out of it (after we've hung Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree). Then I might settle down here and marry some nice woman. You're a widder, I believe you said."

"Yes, I'm a widder," she answered, taking her pipe from her mouth and giving him what she intended for a languishing smile, but which Shorty afterward said reminded him of a sun-crack in a mud fence. "Yes, I'm a widder. Bin so for gwine on six months. Sakes alive, but ye do talk nice. You air the best-lookin' Yankee I've ever seed." "Nothin' painfully bashful about her," thought Shorty. "But I must be careful not to let her get me near a Justice of the Peace. She'd marry me before I could ketch my breath. Madam," he continued aloud.

"Yo' may call me Sophrony," she said, with another cavernous smile.

"Well, Sophrony, let me present you with half o' this plug o' famous terbacker." He drew his jackknife and sliced the plug in two. "Take it, with my warmest respects. Here comes my partner with some coffee I've sent him for, and which I want you to have. It is not as much as I'd like to give you, but it's all that I have. Some other day you shall have much more."

"Law's sakes." she bubbled, as the fragrant odor187 of the coffee reached her nose, and she hefted the package. "Yo' air jest the nicest man I ever did see in all my born days. I didn't s'pose thar wuz so nice a man, or sich a good-lookin' one, in the hull Yankee army, or in the oonfederit either, fur that matter. But, then, yo' ain't no real blue- bellied Yankee."

"No, indeed, Sophrony. I never saw New England in all my life, nor did any o' my people. They wuz from Virginny (about 500 miles, as near as I kin calculate)" he added to himself as a mental poultice.

"Say, Mister, why don't you leave the Yankee army?"

"Can't," said Shorty, despairingly. "If I tried to git back home the Provos 'll ketch me. If I go the other way the rebel's ketch me. I'm betwixt the devil and the deep sea."

She sat and smoked for several minutes in semblance of deep thought, and spat with careful aim at one after another of the prominent weeds around. Then she said:

"If yo' want t' splice with me, I kin take keer o' yo'. I've helped run off several o' the boys who wuz sick o' this Abolition war. Thar's two o' them now with Bill Phillips's gang makin' it hot for the Yankee trains and camps. They're makin' more'n they ever did soljerin', an' havin' a much better time, for they take whatever they want, no matter who it belongs to. D' yo' know Groundhog, a teamster? He's in cahoots with us."

"Oh!" said Shorty to himself. "Here's another lay altogether. Guess it's my duty to work it for all that it's worth."188

"Is it a bargain?" she said suddenly, stretching out her long, skinny hand.

"Sophrony," said Shorty, taking her hand, "this is so sudden. I never thought o' marryin'—at least till this cruel war is over. I don't know what kind of a husband I'd make. I don't know whether I could fill the place o' your late husband!"

"Yo're not gwine t' sneak out," she said, with a fierce flash in her gray eyes. "If yo' do I'll have yo' pizened."

"Now, who's talkin' about backin' out?" said Shorty in a fever of placation, for he was afraid that some of the other boys would overhear the conversation. "Don't talk so loud. Come, let's walk on toward your home. We kin talk on the way."

The proposition appeared reasonable. She took the bridle of her horse in her arm, and together they walked out through the guard-line. The sentries gave Shorty a deep, knowing wink as he passed. He went the more willingly, as he was anxious to find out more about the woman, and the operations of the gang with which she was connected. She had already said enough to explain several mysterious things of recent occurrence. Night came down and as her ungainliness was not thrust upon him as it was in the broad glare of day, he felt less difficulty in professing a deep attachment for her. He even took her hand. On her part she grew more open and communicative at every step, and Shorty had no difficulty in understanding that there was gathered around her a gang that was practicing about everything detrimental to the army. They were by turns spies, robbers, murderers, whisky189 smugglers, horse-thieves, and anything else that promised a benefit to themselves. Ostensibly they were rebels, but this did not prevent their preying upon the rebels when occasion offered. Some were deserters from the rebel army, some were evading the conscript laws, two or three were deserters from our army.

Shorty and the woman had reached a point nearly a half-mile outside of the guard-line when he stopped and said:

"I can't go no farther now. I must go back." "Why must yo' go back?" she demanded, with a190 sudden angry suspicion. "I thought yo' wuz gwine right along with me."

"Why, no. I never thought o' that. I must go back and get my things before I go with you," said Shorty, as the readiest way of putting her off.

"Plague take y'r things," she said. "Let 'em go. Yo' kin git plenty more jest as good from the next Yankee camp. Yo' slip back some night with the boys an' git yo'r own things, if y'r so dratted stuck on 'em. Come along now."

She took hold of his wrist with a grip like iron. Shorty had no idea that a woman could have such strength.

"I want to go back and git my partner," said Shorty. "Me and him 've bin together all the time we've bin in the army. He'll go along with me, I'm sure. Me and him thinks alike on everything, and what one starts the other jines in. I want to go back an' git him."

"I don't like that partner o' your'n. I don't want him. I'll be a better partner t' yo' than ever he was. Yo' mustn't think more o' him than yo' do o' me."

"Look here, Sophrony," said Shorty desperately, "I cannot an' will not go with you to-night. I'm expectin' important letters from home to- morrow, and I must go back an' git 'em. I've a thousand things to do before I go away. Have some sense. This thing's bin sprung on me so suddenly that it ketches me unawares."

With the quickness of a flash she whipped out a long knife from somewhere, and raised it, and then hesitated a second.

She Whipped out a Long Knife. 189

"I believe yo're foolin' me, and if I wuz shore I'd191 stick yo'. But I'm gwine t' give yo' a chance. Yo' kin go back now, an' I'll come for yo' ter-morrer. If you go back on me hit'll be a mouty sorry day for yo'. Mind that now."

Shorty gallantly helped her mount, and then hurried back to camp.

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XIV. SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH SI HE GOES OUT TO VISIT MRS. BOLSTER

SHORTY sauntered thoughtfully back to the tent, and on the way decided to tell Si the whole occurrence, not even omitting the deceit practiced.

He had to admit to himself that he was unaccountably shaken up by the affair.

Si was so deeply interested in the revelations that he forgot to blame Shorty's double-dealing.

"Never had my nerve so strained before," Shorty frankly admitted. "At their best, women are curiouser than transmogrified hullaloos, and when a real cute one sets out to hornswoggle a man he might as well lay down and give right up, for he hain't no earthly show. She gits away with him every time, and one to spare. That there woman's got the devil in her bigger'n a sheep, and she come nigher makin' putty o' your Uncle Ephraim than I ever dreamed of before. It makes me shivery to think about it."

"I don't care if she's more devils in her than the Gadarene swine, she must be stopped at once," said Si, his patriotic zeal flaming up. "She's doin' more mischief than a whole regiment o' rebels, and must be busted immediately. We've got to stop193 her."

"But just how are we goin' to stop her?" Shorty asked. There was a weak unreadiness in Shorty's tones that made Si look at him in surprise. Never before, in any emergency, had there been the slightest shade of such a thing in his bold, self-reliant partner's voice.

"I'd rather tackle any two men there are in the Southern Confederacy than that woman," said Shorty. "I believe she put a spell on me."

"Le's go up and talk to Capt. McGillicuddy about it," said Si. Ordinarily, this was the last thing that either of them would have thought of doing. Their usual disposition was to go ahead and settle the problem before them in their own way, and report about it afterward. But Shorty was clearly demoralized.

Capt. McGillicuddy listened very gravely to their story.

"Evidently that old hen has a nest of bad, dangerous men, which has to be broken up," he said. "We can get the whole raft if we go about it in the right way, but we've got to be mighty smart in dealing with them, or they'll fly the coop, and leave the laugh on us. You say she's coming back to-morrow?"

"Yes," said Shorty, with a perceptible shiver.

"Well, I want you to fall right in with all her plans—both of you. Pretend to be anxious to desert, or anything else that she may propose. Go back home with her. I shall watch you carefully, but without seeming to, and follow you with a squad big enough to take care of anything that may be out there. Go back to your tent now, and think it194 all over, and arrange some signal to let me know when you want me to jump the outfit."

The boys went back to their tent, and spent an hour in anxious consideration of their plans. Si saw the opportunity to render a great service, and was eager to perform it, but he firmly refused to tell any lies to the woman or those around her. He would not say that he was tired of the service and wanted to desert; he would not pretend liking for the Southern Confederacy or the rebels, nor hatred to his own people. He would do nothing but go along, share all the dangers with Shorty, and be ready at the moment to co-operate in breaking up the gang.

"Some folks's so durned straight that they lean over backwards," said Shorty impatiently. "What in thunder does it amount to what you tell these onery gallinippers? They'll lie to you as fast as a hoss kin trot. There's no devilment they won't do, and there kin be nothin' wrong in anything you kin do and say to them."

"Everybody settles some things for himself," said the unchangeable Si. "I believe them folks are as bad as they kin be made. I believe every one o' 'em ought to be killed, and if it wuz orders to kill 'em I'd kill without turnin' a hair. But I jest simply won't lie to nobody, I don't care who he is. I'll stand by you until the last drop; you kin tell 'em what you please, but I won't tell 'em nothin', except that they're a pizen gang, and ought t've bin roastin' in brimstone long ago."

"But," expostulated Shorty, "if you only go along with me you're actin' a lie. If you go out o' camp with mo you'll pretend to bo desertin' and j'inin' in195 with 'em. Seems to me that's jest as bad as tellin' a lie straight out."

"Well," said the immovable Si, "I draw the line there. I'll go along with you, and they kin think what they like. But if I say anything to 'em, they'll git it mighty straight."

"Well, I don't know but, after all, we kin better arrange it that way," said Shorty, after he had thought it over in silence for some time. "I'm sure that if you'd talk you'd give us dead away. That clumsy basswood tongue o' your'n hain't any suppleness, and you'd be sure to blurt out something that'd jest ruin us. An idee occurs to me. You jest go along, look sour and say nothin'. I'll tell 'em you ketched cold the other night and lost your speech. It'll give me a turn o' extra dooty talkin' for two, but I guess I kin do it."

"All right," agreed Si. "Let it go that way."

"Now, look here, Si," said Shorty, in a low, mysterious tone, "I'm goin' to tell you somethin' that I hadn't intended to. I'm scared to death lest that old hag'll git the drop on me some way and marry me right out of hand. I tell you, she jest frightens the life out o' me. That worries me more'n all the rest put together. I expect I ought t 'v' told you so at the very first."

"Nonsense," said Si contemptuously. "The idee o' you're being afeared o' such a thing."

"It's all very well for you to snort and laugh, Si Klegg," persisted Shorty. "You don't know her. I sneered at her, too, at first, but when I was left alone with her she seemed to mesmerize me. I found myself talkin' about marryin' her before I knowed196 it, and the next thing I was on the p'int o' actually marryin' her. I believe that if she'd got me to walk a half-mile further with her she'd a run me up agin a Justice o' the Peace and married me in spite of all that I could do. I'd much ruther have my head blowed off than married to that old catamount.

"Bah, you can't marry folks unless both are willin'," insisted Si. "A man can't have a marriage rung in on him willy-nilly."

"There's just where you're shootin' off your mouth without any sense. You don't know what you're talkin' about. Men are lassoed every day and married to women that they'd run away from like a dog from a porcupine, if they could. You jest look around among the married folks you know, and see how many there are that wouldn't have married one another if they'd bin in their senses."

"Well, I don't think o' many," said Si, whose remembrances were that the people in Posey County seemed generally well-mated.

"Well, there mayn't be many, but there's some, and I don't propose to be one of 'em. There's some spell or witchcraft about it. I've read in books about things that gave a woman power to marry any man she wanted to, and he couldn't help himself. That woman's got something o' that kind, and she's set her eye on me. I'm goin' to meet her, and I want to help break up her gang, but I'd a great deal rather tackle old Bragg and his entire army. I want you to stay right by me every minnit, and keep your eye on me when she's near me."197

"All right," said Si sleepily, as he crawled into bed.

The next morning, as they were discussing the question of signals, they happened to pass the Sutler's, and Si caught a glimpse of packages of firecrackers, which the regimental purveyor had, for some inscrutable reason, thought he might sell. An idea occurred to Si, and he bought a couple of packages, and stowed them away in his blouse pocket and told the Captain that their firing would be the signal, unless a musket-shot should come first.

It was yet early in the forenoon as they walked on the less-frequented side of the camp. Shorty gave a start, and gasped:

"Jewhilikins, there she is already."

Si looked, and saw Mrs. Bolster striding toward them. Shorty hung back instinctively for an instant, and then braced up and bade her good morning.

She grunted an acknowledgment, and said rather imperiously:

"Y're a-gwine, air yo'?"

"Certainly," answered Shorty.

"And yo'?" she inquired, looking at Si.

"He's a-goin', too," answered Shorty. "Mustn't expect him to talk. He's short on tongue this mornin'. Ketched a bad cold night before last. Settled on his word-mill. Unjinted his clapper. Can't speak a word. Doctor says it will last several days. Not a great affliction. Couldn't 've lost anything o' less account."

"Must've bin an orful cold," said she, taking her pipe from her mouth and eyeing Si suspiciously.198

"Never knowed a cold to shut off any one's gab afore. Seems t' me that hit makes people talk more. But these Yankees air different. Whar air yer things? Did yo' bring plenty o' coffee?'

"We've got 'em hid down here in the brush," said Shorty. "We'll git 'em when we're ready to start."

"We're ready now," she answered. "Come along."

"But we hain't no passes," objected Shorty. "We must go to the Captain and git passes."

"Yo' won't need no passes," she said impatiently. "Foller me."

Shorty had expected to make the pretext about the passes serve for informing Capt. McGillicuddy of the presence of the woman in the camp. He looked quickly around and saw the Captain sauntering carelessly at a little distance, so that any notification was unnecessary. He turned and followed Mrs. Bolster's long strides, with Si bringing up the rear.

They went to the clump of brush where they had hidden their haversacks and guns. Mrs. Bolster eagerly examined the precious package of coffee.

"I'll take keer o' this myself," she said, stowing it away about her lanky person. "I can't afford to take no resks as to hit."

Si and Shorty had thought themselves very familiar with the campground, but they were astonished to find themselves led outside the line without passing under the eye of a single guard. Si looked at Shorty in amazement, and Shorty remarked:

"Well, I'll be durned."

The woman noticed and understood. "Yo' Yanks,"199 she said scornfully, "think yourselves moughty smart with all your book-larnin', and yo'uns put on heaps o' airs over po' folks what hain't no eddication; but what you don't know about Tennessee woods would make a bigger book than ever was printed."

"I believe you," said Shorty fervently. His superstition in regard to her was rapidly augmenting to that point where he believed her capable of anything. He was alarmed a'bout Capt. McGillicuddy's being able to follow their mysterious movements. But they soon came to the road, and looking back from the top of a hill, Shorty's heart lightened as he saw a squad moving out which he was confident was led by Capt. McGillicuddy.

But little had been said so far. At a turn of the road they came upon a gray-bearded man, wearing a battered silk hat and spectacles, whom Mrs. Bolster greeted as "'Squire."

The word seemed to send all the blood from Shorty's face, and he looked appealingly to Si as if the crisis had come.

The newcomer looked them over sharply and inquired:

"Who are these men, Mrs. Bolster?"

"They'uns 's all right. They'uns 's had enough o' Abolition doin's, and hev come over whar they'uns allers rayly belonged. This one is a partickler friend o' mine," and she leered at Shorty in a way that made his blood run cold.

"Hain't yo' time t' stop a minute, 'Squire?" she asked appealingly, as the newcomer turned his horse's head to renew his journey.200

"Not now; not now," answered the 'Squire, digging his heels into his steed's side. "I want to talk t' yo' and these 'ere men 'bout what's gwine on in the Lincoln camps, but I must hurry on now to meet Capt. Solomon at the Winding Blades. I'll come over to your house this evening," he called back.

"Don't fail, 'Squire," she answered, "fur I've got a little job for yo', an' I want hit partickerly done this very evenin'. Hit can't wait."

"I'll be there without fail," he assured her.

"Capt. Solomon's the man what sent the letter to you," she explained, which somewhat raised Shorty's depressed heart, for he began to have hopes that Rosenbaum might rescue him if Capt. McGillicuddy should be behind time.

As they jogged onward farther from camp Mrs. Bolster's saturnine earnestness began to be succeeded by what were intended to be demonstrations of playful affection for her future husband, whom she now began to regard as securely hers. She would draw Shorty into the path a little ahead of Si, and walk alongside of him, pinching his arm and jabbering incoherent words which were meant for terms of endearment. When the narrowness of the road made them walk in single file she would come up from time to time alongside with cuffs intended for playful love-taps.

At each of these Shorty would cast such a look of wretchedness at Si that the latter had difficulty in preserving his steadfast silence and rigidity of countenance.

But the woman's chief affection seemed to be called forth by the package of coffee. She would201 stop in the midst of any demonstration to pull out the bag containing the fragrant berry, and lovingly inhale its odor.

It was long past noon when she announced: "Thar's my house right ahead." She followed this up with a ringing whoopee, which made the tumbledown cabin suddenly swarm with animation. A legion of loud-mouthed dogs charged down toward the road. Children of various ages, but of no variety in their rags and unkempt wildness, followed the dogs, or perched upon the fence-corners and stumps, and three or four shambling, evil-faced mountaineers lunged forward, guns in hand, with eyes fiercer than the dogs, as they looked over the two armed soldiers.

"They'uns is all right, boys," exclaimed the woman. "They'uns 's plum sick o' doggin' hit for Abe Lincoln an' quit."

"Let 'em gin up thar guns, then," said the foremost man, who had but one eye, reaching for Shorty's musket. "I'll take this one. I've been longin' for a good Yankee gun for a plum month to reach them Yankee pickets on Duck River."

Though Shorty and Si had schooled themselves in the part they were to play, the repugnant thought of giving up their arms to the rebels threatened to overset everything. Instinctively they threw up their guns to knock over the impudent guerrillas. The woman strode between them and the others, and caught hold of their muskets.

"Don't be fools. Let 'em have your guns," she said, and she caught Si's with such quick unexpectedness that she wrenched it from his grasp and flung202 it to the man who wanted Shorty's. She threw one arm around Shorty's neck, with a hug so muscular that his breath failed, and she wrenched his gun away. She kept this in her hand, however.

"Now, I want these 'ere men treated right," she announced to the others, "and I'm a-gwine to have 'em treated right, or I'll bust somebody's skillet. They'uns is my takings, and I'm a-gwine to have all the say 'bout 'em. I've never interfered with any Yankees any o' yo'uns have brung in. Yo've done with them as you pleased, an' I'm a-gwine to do with these jest as I please, and yo'uns that don't like hit kin jest lump hit, that's all."

Take Your Arm from Around That Yank's Neck 203

"'Frony Bolster, I want yo' to take yo'r arms from around that Yank's neck," said the man who had tried to take Shorty's gun. "I won't 'low yo' to put yo'r arm 'round another man's neck as long's I'm alive to stop it."

"Ye won't, Jeff Hackberry," she sneered. "Jealous, air ye? You've got no bizniss o' bein'. Done tole ye 'long ago I'd never marry yo', so long as I could find a man who has two good eyes and a 'spectable character. I've done found him. Here he is, and 'Squire Corson 'll splice us to- night."

How much of each of the emotions of jealousy, disappointment, hurt vanity, and rebel antagonism went into the howl that Mr. Jeff Hackberry set up at this announcement will never be known. He made a rush with clenched fists at Shorty.

A better description could be given of the operations of the center of a tornado than of the events of the next few minutes. Shorty and Hackberry grappled fiercely. Mrs. Bolster mixed in to stop the fight and save Shorty. Si and the other three rebels flung themselves into the whirlpool of strikes, kicks, and grapples. The delighted children came rushing in, and eagerly joined the fray, striking with charming impartiality at every opportunity to get a lick in anywhere on anybody; and finally the legion of dogs, to whom such scenes seemed familiar and gladsome, rushed in with an ear-splitting clamor, and jumped and bit at the arms and legs that went flying around.204

This was too violent to last long. Everybody and everything had to stop from sheer exhaustion. But when the stop came Mrs. Bolster was sitting on the prostrate form of Jeff Hackberry. The others were disentangling themselves from one another, the children and the dogs, and apparently trying to get themselves into relation with the points of the compass and understand what had been happening.

"Have yo' had enough, Jeff Hackberry," inquired Mrs. Bolster, "or will yo' obleege me to gouge yer other eye out afore yo' come to yer senses?"

"Le' me up, 'Frony," pleaded the man, "an' then we kin talk this thing over."

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XV. SHORTY NEARLY GOT MARRIED BREAKING UP A BAD REBEL NEST IS NO PICNIC

WHEN physical exhaustion called a halt in the fracas, Mrs. Bolster was seated on Jeff Hackberry's breast with her sinewy hands clutching his long hair, and her thumb, with a cruel, long nail, pressing the ball of his one good eye. Shorty was holding down one of the guerrillas who had tried to climb on his back when he was grappling with Hackberry. Si had knocked one guerrilla senseless with his gun-barrel, and now came to a breathless standstill in a struggle with another for the possession of his gun. The children and dogs had broken up into several smaller stormcenters, in each of which a vicious fight was going on. In some it was dog and dog; in some child and child, and in others dogs and children mixed.

Then they all halted to observe the outcome of the discussion between Mrs. Bolster and Jeff Hackberry.

"Holler 'nuff, Jeff, or out goes yer last light," commanded Mrs. Bolster, emphasizing her words by rising a little, and then settling down on Jeff's breast with a force that drove near every spoonful of breath out of him.

"'Frony, le' me up," he begged in gasps.206

"Mrs. Bolster," she reminded him, with another jounce upon his chest.

"Mrs. Bolster, le' me up. I'd 'a' got away with that 'ere Yank ef ye' hedn't tripped me with them long legs o' your'n."

"I'm right smart on the trip, aint I," she grinned. "I never seed a man yit that I couldn't throw in any sort of a rastle."

"Le' me up, Mrs. Bolster, an le's begin over agin, an' yo' keep out," begged Hackberry.

"Not much I won't. I ain't that kind of a chicken," she asserted with another jounce. "When I down a man I down him fer good, an' he never gits up agin 'till he caves entirely. If I let yo' up, will yo' swar to quite down peaceable as a lamb, an' make the rest do the same?"

"Never," asserted Hackberry. "I'm ergwine to have it out with that Yank."

"No you haint," she replied with a still more emphatic jounce that made Hackberry use all the breath left him to groan.

"I'll quit," he said, with his next instalment of atmosphere.

"Will yo' agree t' let me marry this Yank, an' t' give me away as my oldest friend, nearest o' kin, an' best man?" she inquired, rising sufficiently to let him take in a full breath and give a free, unforced answer.

"Nary a time," he shrieked. "I'll die fust, afore I'll 'low yo' t' marry ary other man but me."

"Then you'll lose yor bClinker, yo' pigheaded, likker-guzzling', ornery, no-account sand-hill crane," she said, viciously coming down on his chest with207 her full weight and sticking the point of hei nail against his eye. "I wouldn't marry yo' if ye wuz the last nubbin' in the Lord A'mighty's crib, and thar'd never be another crap o' men. Ye'll never git no chance to make me yer slave, and beat me and starve me t' death as yo' did Nance Brill. I ain't gwine t' fool with yer pervarsity nary a minnit longer. Say this instant whether yo'll do as I say with a freewill and good heart, or out goes yer peeper." "I promise," groaned Jeff.208

"Yo' sw'ar hit?" she demanded.

"Yes, I sw'ar hit," answered Jeff.

Mrs. Bolster rose, and confirmed the contract by giving him a kick in the side with her heavy brogan.

"That's jest a lovetap," she remarked, "'t let yo' know t' le' me alone hereafter. Now, le's straighten things around here fer a pleasant time."

She initiated her proposed era of good feeling by a sounding kick in the ribs of the most obstreperous of the dogs, and a slap on the face of a 12-year-old girl, who was the noisest and most pugnacious of the lot. Each of these set up a howl, but there was a general acquiescence in her assertion of authority.

Jeff Sat up and Rubbed Himself 208

Jeff Hackberry sat up, scratched and rubbed himself, seemed to be trying to once more get a full supply of air in his lungs, and turned a one- eyed glare on his surroundings. The guerrilla whom Si had knocked down began to show signs of returning consciousness, but no one paid any attention to him. One of the other two pulled out a piece of tobacco, split it in two, put the bigger half in his mouth and handed the remainder to his partner. Both began chewing meditatively and looking with vacant eyes for the next act in the drama. Shorty regained his gun, and he and Si looked inquiringly at one another and the mistress of the ranch.

"Come on up t' the house," she said, starting in that direction. The rest followed, with Si and Shorty in the lead.

The boys gazed around them with strong curiosity. The interior was like that of the other log cabins they had seen—a rough puncheon floor for the single room, a fireplace as big as a barn door, built of rough209 stones, with a hearth of undressed flat stones, upon which sat a few clumsy cooking utensils of heavy cast-iron, three-legged stools for chairs, a table of rough whip-sawed boards held together by wooden pins. In two of the corners were beds made of a layer of poles resting upon a stick supported at one end upon a log in the wall and at the other end a forked stick driven between the puncheons into the ground below. Upon this was a pile of beech leaves doing duty as a mattress. The bed- clothes were a mass of ragged fabrics, sheepskins, etc., used in the daytime for saddle-blankets and at night upon the bed. There had been added to them, however, looking particularly good and rich in contrast with their squalor, several blankets with "U. S." marked upon them. Around the room were canteens, shoes, and other soldier belongings.

"Have they killed and robbed the men to whom these belonged, or merely traded whisky for them?" was the thought that instantly flashed through Si's and Shorty's minds. The answer seemed to be favorable to murder and robbery. "Set down an' make yourselves at home. I'll git yo' out suthin' t' wet yer whistles," said Mrs. Bolster, wreathing as much graciousness as she could into her weathered-wood countenance. She apparently kicked at the same instant a stool toward them with her left foot, and a dog out of the way with her right, a performance that excited Shorty's admiration.

"When I see a woman kick in different directions with both feet at the same time, I understood how dangerous her trip would be in a rastle," he said afterward.210

Si and Shorty shoved two of the stools so that they could sit with their backs to the wall, still holding their guns.

The guerrillas came filing in, with an expectant look on their faces. Even Jeff Hackberry looked more thirstily longing than wrathful. The man who had fallen under Si's gunbarrel had gotten able to walk, was rubbing his head and moaning with the design of attracting attention and sympathy.

Mrs. Bolster produced a key from her pocket. The others understood what this meant. They lifted aside some sacks of meal and shelled corn, and revealed a puncheon which had been cut in two, and the short piece was garnished by rude iron hinges and hasp, all probably taken from some burned barn. The hasp was locked into the staple by one of the heavy padlocks customary on the plantations, and this Mr. Bolster proceeded to open with her key. When the puncheon was turned up it revealed a pit beneath, from which she lifted a large jug of whisky. She poured some out in a tin cup and handed it to Shorty.

"Take a big swig," she said; "hit's mouty good stuff—ole Jeff Thompson's brewin' from yaller corn raised on rich bottom land."

Si trembled as he saw his partner take the cup. Shorty smelled it appreciatively. "That is good stuff," he said. "Roses ain't nowhere alongside."

He put the cup to his lips and took a sip.

"Tastes as good as it smells," he said, heartily, while the mouths of the guerrillas were watering. He put the cup again to his lips, as if to take a deep draft. Then came a short cough and a tremendous211 sputter, followed by more painful coughing and strangling.

"Jest my infernal luck," gasped Shorty. "I would talk, an' I got some down the wrong way.

"Lord, it's burnin' my lights out. Gi' me a drink o' water, somebody."

One of the children handed him a gourdful of water, while he continued to cough and sputter and blame himself for talking when he was drinking.

The woman handed the cup to Si, who feared that the liquor might be poisoned or drugged. He made a pretense of drinking, and then handed the cup back, making motions that his throat was so sore that he could not drink much. Mrs. Bolster looked at him suspiciously, but the clamor of the guerillas distracted her attention, and she turned to supply them.

"No, Jeff Hackberry," she said firmly, "yo' can't have more'n two fingers. I know yo' of old, an' jest how much yo' orter tote. Two fingers'll make yo' comfortable an' sociable; three'll raise the devil in yo,' an' four'll make yo' dancin' drunk, when yo'll have t' be held down. Yo'll have jest two fingers, an' not a drap more."

"Jest another finger, 'Frony. Remember, yo've bin orful rough on me, an' I need more. I'll promise t' be good," pleaded Hackberry.

"No, not a drap more'n two fingers now. If yo' behave yo'self I'll give yo' another two fingers by-an'-by."

"Hackberry swallowed his portion at a thirsty gulp and sat down on the door-sill to let it do its invigorating work. The other two guerrillas were212 given each two fingers, and the man whom Si knocked down had his moanings rewarded by three fingers and a liberal application in addition to the wound on his head, which he declared was much relieved by it.

"Set your guns up agin the wall an' ack nacherul," commanded Mrs. Bolster. "Nobody's a-gwine to hurt yo'. The 'Squire'll be here soon, we'll git spliced, an' have a good time all around."

The noisy barking of the dogs announced the approach of someone.

"Lord, I hope that's 'Squire Corson," said Mrs. Bolster, running eagerly to the door. "If hit's him, we kin go right ahead with the weddin'."

"If that's the 'Squire," said Shorty, in a low whisper, without turning his head, "we'll grab our guns and fight to the death. We may clean out this gang."

Si's attention had been in the meanwhile attracted to some boxes concealed under the beds, and his curiosity was aroused as to what such unusual things in a cabin might contain.

"No; hit's Capt. Sol. Simmons," said she in a tone of disappointment mixed with active displeasure. "Now, he'll be cavortin' and tearin' around, and wantin' t' kill somebody. I wish he wuz whar hit's a good deal hotter."

She came over to where the boys were sitting, and said in a low tone:

"This man's allers makin' trouble, an' he's bad from his boots up. Keep a stiff upper lip, both on yo', an' we'll try t' manage him. Don't weaken. Hit'll do no good. He'll be wuss'n ever then."213

Si and Shorty instinctively felt for the revolvers in their pockets.

The newcomer tied his horse to a sapling and strode into the house. The guerrillas seemed rather more fearful than otherwise to see him, but met him with manners that were ranged from respectful by Jeff Hackberry to absolute servility by the others. He was a burly, black-bearded man, wearing a fairly-good uniform of a rebel Captain. His face showed that he was a bully, and a cruel one.

He acknowledged in an overbearing way the greetings of the others, and called out imperiously:

"'Frony, gi' me a stiff dram o' yer best at wunst. My throat's drier'n a lime-kiln. Bin ridin' all mornin'."

"Folks wantin' likker don't say must t' me, but will yo', an' please," she answered sulkily.

"'Must,' 'please,' yo' hag," he said savagely. "Talk that a-way to me. I'll 'please' yo'. I've killed two Yankees this mornin', an' I'm not in the humor to fool around with an old pennyroyal huzzy like yo'. Gi' me some whisky at wunst, or I'll baste yo'."

If ever Mrs. Bolster had been favorably disposed to him, she could not endure to have him treat her this way before Shorty. She would assert herself before him if ever.

She put her arms akimbo and retorted vigorously:

"Nary drap o' likker yo'll git from me, Sol. Simmons. Go and git yer likker whar y're welcome. Y're not welcome here. I don't keer if yo' have killed two Yankees or 20 Yankees. Y're allers talkin' about killin' Yankees, but nobody never sees none that y've killed. I'm a better Confederit than yo'214 ever dared be. I'm doin' more for the Southern Confedrisy. Y're allers a-blowin' while I'm allers adoin.' Everybody knows that. Talk about the two Yankees y've killed, an' which nobody's seed, here I've brung two Yankees right outen their camps, an' have 'em to show. More'n that, they're gwine to jine we'uns."

She indicated the two boys with a wave of her hand. Simmons seemed to see them for the first time.

"Yankees here, an' yo' haint killed 'em," he yelled. He put his hand to his revolver and stepped forward. The two boys jumped up and snatched their guns, but before another move could be made Mrs. Bolster's unfailing trip brought Simmons heavily to the floor, with his revolver half out the holster. In an instant she sat down heavily upon him, and laid her brawny hand upon his pistol. The dogs and children gathered around in joyous expectation of a renewal of general hostilities. But the dogs broke away at the scent or sight of someone approaching.

"Mebbe that's 'Squire Corson,'" said Mrs. Bolster with a renewed flush of pleasant anticipation.

Instead, a rather, good-looking young rebel officer wearing a Major's silver stars dismounted from his horse and, followed by two men, entered the cabin.

"Hello, Simmons," said the Major in a tone of strong rebuke as soon as he entered. "What in the world are you doing here? Is this the way you carry out the General's orders? You're at your old tricks again. You were sent out here early this morning, to capture or drive away that Yankee picket at Raccoon Ford, so as to let Capt. Gillen come through215 with his pack-mules. I expected to meet him here and go on with him. Your men have been waiting at the crossroads for you since daylight, while you've been loitering around the rear. I ought to have you shot, and you would be if I reported this to the General. You skulking whelp, you ought to be shot. But I'll give you one more chance. It may not be too late yet. Break for your place as fast as you can, and take these whelps with you. I'll wait here till sundown for you. If you don't report back to me by that time you'd better make your will. Jump now."

Mrs. Bolster had let go of Simmons as this exordium proceeded, as she felt that he was in good hands.

As they disappeared the Major turned to Mrs. Bolster and inquired:

"Did Capt. Gillen get through with that quinine and guncaps?"

"They're thar," she said, pointing to the boxes under the beds.

"Very good. I've brought some men to take them away. We need them very badly. Who are these men?"

Mrs. Bolster told her story about how they were tired of the Abolition war, and had yielded to her persuasions to join the Southern army.

The Major looked them over sharply, and began a close cross-questioning as to where they were born, what regiment they belonged to, how long they had been in the service, what battles they had been engaged in and on what part of the field, where their regiment now was, its brigade, division and corps, commanders, etc., etc.216

As Shorty did not see any present occasion for lying, he had no trouble in telling a convincing straightforward story. Si successfully worked the loss-of-voice racket, and left the burden of conversation to his partner.

The Major seemed satisfied, and said at the conclusion:

"Very good. I'll take you back with me when I return, and place you in a good regiment."

This was a new and startling prospect, which was almost too much for Shorty's self-control. For a minute he had wild thoughts of assassinating the Major then and there, and making a run for life. But he decided to wait a little longer and see what would develop.

If Mrs. Bolster's hue had permitted she would have turned pale at this threatened loss of a husband and upsetting of all her plans. She merely gulped down a lump in her throat and seemed to be thinking.

She became very attentive to the Major, and brought for his edification a private bottle of fine old whisky. She set about preparing something for them to eat.

Again the dogs barked, and in walked a man dressed in the fatigue uniform of a Union soldier with the chevrons of a Sergeant. The boys gave a start of surprise, and a great one when they saw on his cap:

A 200 Ind. Vols.

Si would have sprung up to greet him, but Shorty laid a restraining hand, and whispered:217

"He don't belong to our regiment."

A second glance satisfied Si of this. While it is hardly possibly for a man to know every other man in his regiment, yet in a little while there comes something which enables him to know whether any man he meets does or does not belong to his regiment.

The Major and Mrs. Bolster instantly recognized the newcomer.

"Awful glad to see you, Tuggers," said the Major, rising and shaking his hand. "Did you get through without any trouble?"

"Not a bit o' trouble, thanks to you and Mrs. Bolster here. She got me this uniform and this cap," said Tuggers, taking off the latter article and scanning the lettering. "Rather more brass than I'm in the habit of carrying on top of my head, no matter how much I have in my face. I got your not giving me the positions of the Yankee regiments, for which I suppose we must also thank Mrs. Bolster. I found them all correct. As the 200th Ind. was the farthest out, I had no difficulty getting through the rest of them by saying that I was on my way to my regiment. Of course, I didn't come through the camp of the 200th Ind., but modestly sought a byroad which Mrs. Bolster had put me onto. I've got a lot of important letters from the mail in Nashville, among which are some letters for the General, which I am told are highly important. I'm mighty glad to be able to place them in your hands, and relieve myself of the responsibility. Here they are. Thanks, I don't care if I do, since you press me so hard,"218 said he, without change of voice, as he handed over the letters and picked up the bottle and tin cup.

"Excuse me, Tuggers, for not asking you before," said the Major. "I was so interested in you and your letters I forgot for the moment that you might be thirsty. Help yourself."

"I didn't forget it," said Tuggers, pouring out a liberal dram. "Here's to our deserving selves and our glorious Cause."

A shy girl of about eight had responded to Si's persistent encouragement, and sidled up to him, examining his buttons and accouterments. Si gave her some buttons he had in his pocket, and showed her his knife and other trinkets in his pockets. The other children began to gather around, much interested in the elaborate dumb show he was making of his inability to speak.

Again the dogs barked. Mrs. Bolster ran to the door. "Hit's 'Squire Corson," she exclaimed joyously, and hustled around to make extra preparations for his entertainment.

The 'Squire entered, mopping his face with his bandana, and moving with the deliberation and dignity consistent with his official position.

He looked at the boys with a severe, judicial eye, and gave the ominous little cough with which he was wont to precede sentences. But he recognized the Major and Tuggers, and immediately his attention was centered in them. They were connected with Army Headquarters; they were repositories of news which he could spread among his constituents. He greeted them effusively, and was only too glad to accept their invitation to sit down and drink. But219 he suggested, with official prudence, that they go out in front and sit under a tree where they could converse wore at liberty.

"Afore you go out, 'Squire," said Mrs. Bolster, with an attempt at coyness, "I want yo' t' do a little job fer me."

Shorty's hair tried to stand on end.

"Jest wait a little, my good woman," said the 'Squire patronizingly. "I want to talk to these gentlemen first; I kin 'tend to your matter any time."

They lighted their pipes, and talked and talked, while Mrs. Bolster fidgeted around in growing anxiety. Finally, as the sun was going down, she could stand it no longer, and approached the group.

"'Squire," she said, "I'm orferly anxious to have a little job o' mine done. 'Twon't take yo' five minits. Please 'tend to it right away."

"What is it she wants?" inquired the Major.

"I think she wants me to marry her to a Yankee deserter in there. She whispered suthin' o' that kind to me awhile ago."

"That reminds me," said the Major; "I want you to swear those two men into the service of the Southern Confederacy. You might as well do it now, if you please, for I want to take them back with me and put them into a regiment."

"That won't give much of a honeymoon to Mrs. Bolster," grinned the 'Squire.

"Well, we've all got to make sacrifices for the Cause," said the Major; "her honeymoon'll be the sweeter for being postponed. I've had to postpone mine."

"Well, bring the men out," said the 'Squire, pouring himself out another drink.220

Si and Shorty had moved to the front door when Mrs. Bolster went out, and could hear the whole conversation. They looked at one another. Their faces were whiter than they had ever been on the field of battle.

"Take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy? Die right here a hundred times," surged through both their hearts.

Si pulled the bunches of firecrackers from his pocket, undid them before the children's wondering eyes. He went through a pantomime to tell them to take a coal from the fire, run out back with them, and touch it to the fuses.

"Take a coal, run back, and tech it to them strings," said Shorty, forgetting himself in his excitement. "It'll be the greatest fun ye ever saw."

"What's that y're sayin'?" said Mrs. Bolster.

"Jest talkin' to the children," said Shorty, seeing with relief the children bolt out of the back door. He slipped his hand on his revolver, determined to kill the 'Squire, the Major, and the other three men before he would take a syllable of the oath.

"Come out here, men," said the Major authoritatively. Si slipped his hand into his pocket, grasped his revolver, and walked forward very slowly.

"Ahem," said the 'Squire, with an official cough. "Raise yer right hands, and repeat these words after me, givin' your own names."

The other rebels took off their hats.

The dogs raised a clamor, which directed all eyes to the road. Sol Simmons and the rest could be seen coming on a dead run.

"What does that mean?" said the Major anxiously.221

At the same instant there was a series of crashes behind the house; the firecrackers were going off like a volley of rifle-shots. The Major whirled around to see what that meant, and looked into the muzzle of Shorty's revolver.

"Surrender, or I'll kill you," shouted Shorty desperately. "Don't stop a minit. Throw up your hands, I tell you."

Si was making a similar demand on Tuggers, while the 'Squire was standing, open-mouthed, with the first word of the oath apparently still on his tongue.

The Major sprang at Shorty, whose bullet cut his hair. The next bullet caught the officer in the shoulder, and he reeled and went down. Si was not so fortunate with Tuggers, who succeeded in grappling him. Simmons dashed by and struck Si, in passing, with his fist, which sent him to the ground, with Tuggers on top.

The next minute the 'Squire, who was the only one who had any opportunity to look, saw Yankees pop out of the brush and jump the fences in a long, irregular line which immediately surrounded the house. Capt. McGillicuddy cut down Simmons with his sword, and the rest incontinently surrendered.

"We had got tired of waiting, and were on the point of dashing in, anyhow, when we heard the firecrackers," said Capt. McGillicuddy, after the prisoners had been secured and things quieted down. "That feller that I cut down was out there with a squad and caught sight of us, and started back this way, and I concluded to follow him up and jump the house. Neither of you hurt, are you?"222

"Not hurt a mite," answered Shorty cheerfully, "but it's the closest squeak I ever had. Wouldn't go through it agin for a pile o' greenbacks big as a cornshock. Say, Cap., you've made a ten-strike today that ought to make you a Major. That house's plum full o' contraband, and there's a lot o' important letters there. But, say, Cap., I want you to either kill that 'Squire or git him as fur away as possible. I ain't safe a minnit as long as him and that woman's a-nigh me."

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XVI. AN UNEXPECTED MARRIAGE THE BOYS CAPTURE REBELS AND ADMINISTER THE OATH

THE REBEL Major accepted the unexpected turn of events with soldierly philosophy. Tuggers, captured in a blue uniform, saw the ignominious fate of a spy loom up before his eyes. His face grew very white and set. He sat down on a log, looked far away, and seemed oblivious to everything around him.

Jeff Hackberry and Sol Simmons were frightened into nerveless terror, and occasionally sighed and groaned audibly. Their men huddled together like frightened sheep, and looked anxiously at every move of their captors.

'Squire Corson had ventured two or three remarks in a judicial and advisory way, but had been ordered by Capt. McGillicuddy to sit down and keep quiet. He took a seat on a stump, pulled a large bandana out of his beaver crowned hat, wiped his bald head, and anxiously surveyed the scene as if looking for an opportunity when the power and dignity of the State of Tennessee might be invoked to advantage.

Only Mrs. Bolster retained her aggressiveness and her tongue. If anything, she seemed to be more savage and virulent than ever. She was wild that she had been outwitted, and particularly by Si, whose fluent speech had returned the moment the224 firecrackers went oif. She poured out volleys of scorching epithets on all the Yankees from President Lincoln down to Corp'l Si Klegg, and fervently invoked for them speedy death and eternal torment where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

Capt. McGillicuddy rounded up his prisoners, took arms from those who still retained them, had Si and Shorty do what they could toward dressing the Major's wound, and then began an examination of the house.

He found abundant evidence of all that he, Si and Shorty had believed of it. It was a rendezvous for spies, both great and small—both those, like Mrs. Bolster, who infested our camps, and got news of whatever was going on there, and those who operated on a larger scale, passing directly from the Headquarters of the rebels to the Headquarters of ours, and to the rear, and the sources of information at Nashville and Louisville. It was an important station on the route for smuggling gun-caps, quinine, medicines and other contraband from the North. Quantities of these were there waiting to be forwarded. As the source of the fighting whisky introduced into the camp of the 200th Ind. too much was known of it to require any further information. And it was more than probable that it was the scene of darker crimes—Union soldiers lured thither under some pretext, murdered and robbed.

"How in the world am I going to break this infernal nest up?" said Capt. McGillicuddy, with a puzzled air, after he had ordered the whisky destroyed and the other things gotten in shape to send225 back to camp. "By rights, I ought to burn that house down, but that would leave all these children without shelter. By the same token, I ought to shoot or at least send off to prison that old she-catamount, but that would mean starving the children to death. I declare, I don't know what to do."

He had drawn apart a little with Si and Shorty, to whom he spoke confidentially, while casting his eyes about him as if seeking some solution of the problem.

"If you'll allow me. Captain," said Shorty, "I've an idee. Now that we've got the trap, let's set it agin, and see if we can't ketch some more."

"Splendid idea. Shorty," said the Captain, catching on at once.

"And my idee," said Shorty, emboldened by the reception of his first suggestion, "is that you take all the company but me and Si and four or fire of the boys back to camp, leavin' us here until to-morrow at least. There'll probably some very interestin' men happen along here to-night, not knowing what's happened, and we'll jest quietly yank 'em in."

"That's good," assented the Captain.

"In the meantime," continued Shorty, "you kin be considerin' what you'll do with the house. It may be best to let it stand, and watch it. That's a good way to do with a bee-tree or a woodchuck hole.

"I believe you are right. I'll do as you say. Si, you and Shorty pick out as many men as you want to stay with you. I'll leave one of these horses with you. If you should happen to need any more, mount one of the boys and send him back for help. I'll come out with the whole company."226

Shorty and Si consulted together for a few minutes, picked out their men, gave their names to the Captain, and received his assent to the selection. Then Shorty said:

"Captain, you don't want to take that old woman, the 'Squire and that skunk they call Jeff Hackberry back to camp with you, do you? Leave 'em here with us. I've got a little scheme."

"The old woman and the 'Squire you can take and welcome," answered the Captain. "I'll be glad to have them oif my hands. But Hackberry is a rebel soldier. I don't know about giving him up."

"Leave him with us, then. We'll turn him back to you all right, and the old woman and the 'Squire, too, if you want 'em."

"No," said the Captain, with an impatient wave of his hand. "Keep them, do what you please with them. If you should accidentally kill the old woman I should not be unduly distressed. But don't let Hackberry get away from you. I'll take the rest back to camp, and I must start at once, for it's getting late, and we didn't bring any rations with us. Do you suppose you can find enough around the house to keep you till morning?"

"O, yes," said Si. "There's a sack of meal in there and some side-meat. We gave the old woman a lot of coffee. We'll make out all right."

The prisoners had been watching the Captain and his men with greatest anxiety. They now saw Si with his squad take the 'Squire. Mrs. Bolster and Hackberry off to one side, while the Captain placed the remainder of the prisoners in the center of his company and started back to camp with them.227

There was something in this separation that terrified even Mrs. Bolster, who stopped railing and began to look frightened.

"What are yo'uns goin' to do with we'uns?" she inquired hoarsely of Si.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Si significantly. "Set down there on that log and think about what you deserve. You might put in any spare time you have in doing some big repentin'."

Hackberry began to whine and beg for mercy, but Shorty ordered him to keep silent.

"I want you to understand," said the 'Squire, "that I'm a regerlarly elected and qualified Magistrate o' the State o' Tennessee; that I'm not subjeck to military laws, and if any harm comes to me you'll have to answer for it to the State o' Tennessee."

"Blast the State o' Tennessee," said Shorty contemptuously. "When we git through there won't be no State o' Tennessee. It'll be roasting in the same logheap with South Caroliny and Virginny, with Jeff Davis brilin' in the middle."

"Boys," ordered Si, "a couple of you look around the house and see if you can't find a mattock and shovel."

Terrible fears assailed the three unhappy prisoners at this. What could a mattock and shovel be wanted for but to dig their graves?

Shorty stepped over a little distance to a large clump of "red-sticks." These grow in long wands of brilliant red, as straight as a corn-stalk, and slenderer. They are much used about the farms of the South for rods for rough measurement. He cut one off about six feet long and stripped off its leaves.228

The anxious eyes of the prisoners followed every movement.

Two of the boys appeared with an old mattock and shovel.

"Guess you'd better dig right over there," said Si, indicating a little bare knoll.

"Nothin' else's ever bin planted there. At least nothin's ever come up. The chances are agin their comin' up if we plant 'em there."

"Stand up," said Shorty, approaching Hackberry with the bright crimson rod in his hand. "I'm goin' to measure you for a grass-green suit that'll last you till Gabriel blows his horn."

Hackberry gave a howl of terror. The 'Squire and Mrs. Bolster began a clamor of protests.

"Don't fuss," said Shorty calmly to them, as he took Hackberry's dimensions. "I ain't goin' to show no partiality. I'll serve you both the same way. Your turns 'll come after his'n."

The children, aware that something unusual was going on, yet unable to comprehend what it was, stood silently around, their fingers in their mouths and their vacant eyes fixed in the stolid stare of the mountaineer youth. Even the dogs were quiet, and seemed watching the scene with more understanding than the children.

Mrs. Bolster's mood suddenly changed from bitter vituperation. She actually burst into tears, and began pleading for her life, and making earnest promises as to better conduct in the future. The 'Squire and Hackberry followed suit, and blubbered like schoolboys. Mrs. Bolster reminded Si and Shorty how she had saved them from being killed by the229 fierce Hackberry and the still fiercer Simmons. This seemed to move them. She tried a ghastly travesty of feminine blandishments by telling Shorty how handsome she had thought him, and had fallen in love with him at first sight. Shorty gave a grimace at this. He and Si stepped back a little for consultation.

When they came back Shorty said oracularly:

"Our orders is strict, and we should've carried 'em out at once. But, talkin' with my partner here, we're reminded o' somethin'. We believe it's the law that when a man or woman is sentenced to death the execution kin be put off if they kin find anybody to marry 'em. Is that good law, 'Squire?"

"H-m-m," answered the Magistrate, resuming his judicial manner at once; "that is a general belief, and I've heard o' some instances of it. But before sayin' positively, I should like to examine the authorities an' hear argument."

"Well, there hain't goin' to be no continuance in this case for you to look up authorities and hear arguments," said Shorty decisively. "We're the higher court in this case, and we decided that the law's good enough for it. We've settled that if Mrs. Bolster 'll marry Hackberry, and Hackberry 'll marry Mrs. Bolster, and you'll marry 'em both, we'll grant a stay o' proceedings in the matter o' the execution o' the sentence o' death until we kin be advised by the higher authorities."

"I'll do anything. Mister," blubbered Hackberry. "I'll marry her this minnit. Say the words, 'Squire."

"I've said I'd rather die 10 times over than marry yo', Jeff Hackberry," murmured Mrs. Bolster. "I've280 bin the wife o' one ornery snipe of a whisky-sucking sand-digger, and when the Lord freed me from him I said I'd never git yoked with another. But I s'pose I've got to live for my children, though the Lord knows the yaller-headed brats hain't wuth hit. They're everyone of 'em their dad over agin—all Bolsters, and not wuth the powder to blow 'em to kingdom come. I'd a heap ruther marry Jeff Hackberry to make sure o' havin' him shot than to save him from shootin'."

"You hain't no choice, Madam," said Shorty severely. "Law and orders is strict on that pint."

"Well, then," said she, "since hit's a ch'ice betwixt death and Jeff Hackberry, I'll take Jeff Hackberry, though I wouldn't take him on no other terms, and I'm afeared I'm makin' a mistake as hit is."

"What do you say, 'Squire?" asked Shorty.

"I've bin studyin' on jest whar I come in," answered the Magistrate. "These two save their necks by marryin', but do you understand that the law says that the Magistrate who marries 'em gits his neck saved?"

"The court is not clear on that as a p'int o' law," said Shorty; "but in the present case it'll hold that the 'Squire who does the splicin' gets as much of a rake-off as the rest. This is not to be considered a precedent, however."

"All right," assented the 'Squire; "let the couple jine hands."

With an air of glad relief, Hackberry sprang up and put out his hand. Mrs. Bolster came up more slowly and reluctantly grasped his hairy fist in her231 large, skinny hand. The 'Squire stood up before them in his most impressive attitude.

"Hold on," suddenly called out Tom Welch, who was the "guard-house lawyer" of Co. Q, and constantly drawing the "Regulations," the "Tactics," and the "Constitution and Laws of the United States," in which he was sharply proficient, upon the members of the regiment. "I raise the point that the 'Squire can't officiate until he has taken the oath of allegiance to the United States."

Si and Shorty looked at one another.

"That's a good point," said Si. "He's got to take the oath of allegiance."

"Never," shouted the 'Squire, who had begun to recover his self- confidence. "Never, as long as I live. I've sworn allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, and won't take no other oath."

"Grave for one!" called out Shorty to the boys with the pick and shovel, as if he were giving an order in a restaurant. "Full size, and hurry up with it."

He picked up his measuring rod and started to take the 'Squire's dimensions.

The 'Squire wilted at once. "I s'pose I've got to yield to force," he muttered. "I'll take the oath."

"Who knows the oath?" inquired Si. "Do you, Tom?"

"Not exactly," replied Tom, non-plused for once. "But I know the oath we took when mustered in. That ought to do. What's good enough for us is good enough for him."

"Go ahead," ordered Si.

"We ought to have a Bible by rights," said Tom.232

"Where kin we find your Bible, Mrs. Bolster, asked Si.

"We'uns air done clean out o' Bibles," she said, rather shamefacedly. "Thar hain't nary one in the house. I allers said we orter have a Bible. Hit looked 'spectable to have one in the house. But Andy allers wanted every cent to guzzle on."

"Here's a Testament. That'll do," said Tom, handing Si one which some of the boys had about him. "Le's make 'em all take the oath while we're at it."

"You'll all raise your right hands," said Si, opening the book. "Place your left on this book, and repeat the words after that man there, givin' your own names." Si was as solemn about it as he believed everyone should be at such a ceremony. Hackberry and Mrs. Bolster were not sure which were their right hands, but Si finally got them started, and Tom Welch repeated slowly and impressively:

"You do solemnly swear to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, and all laws made in pursuance thereof, against all enemies and opposers whatsoever, whether foreign or domestic, and to obey the orders of all officers duly appointed over you. So help you God, and kiss this book."

"And to quit liquor selling, smuggling, spying and giving aid and comfort to the enemy," added Shorty, and this was joined to the rest of the oath.

"I ought to have added that they wash their faces once a day, and put more shortenin' and fillin' in Mrs. Bolster's pies," said Shorty in an undertone to233 Si. "But I suppose we oughtn't to ask impossible things."

"Now go ahead with the wedding ceremony," ordered Si.

Again the 'Squire commanded them to join hands, and after mumbling over the fateful words, pronounced Thomas Jefferson Hackberry and Mrs. Sophronia Bolster man and wife.

"Now," said Shorty, who felt at last fully insured against a great danger, "I believe it's the law and custom for all the witnesses to a weddin' to see the bride and bridegroom in bed together. You'll go inside the house and take one of them beds, and after we've seen you there we'll consider your cases further. You're all right, anyway, until we hear from camp to-morrow."

Amid the grins of the rest the boys conducted the newly-weds into the house.

He and Si brought out the sack of meal, a few cooking utensils, a side of bacon, and the package of coffee, which they gave to the other boys to get supper with. They closed the door behind them, excluding the children and dogs, and left the pair to their own reflections.

"Gentlemen, what air you gwine to do with me?" asked the 'Squire. "I'd powerful like to git on home, if you've no further use for me."

"We hain't decided what to do with you, you old fomenter o' rebellion," said Si. "We ought to shoot you for what you've done in stirring up these men to fight us. We'll settle your case to-morrow. You'll stay with us till then. We'll give you your234 supper, and after awhile you kin go in and sleep in that other bed, with the children."

The 'Squire gave a dismal groan at the prospect, which was lost on the boys, who were very hungry and hurrying around helping to get supper.

They built a fine fire and cooked a bountiful meal, of which all, including the 'Squire and children, partook heartily. A liberal portion, with big cups of strong coffee, were sent into the bridal couple. As bed-time drew near, they sent the 'Squire and the children into the house, and divided themselves up into reliefs to watch during the night.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XVII. GATHERING INFORMATION SI AND SHORTY WORK A TRAP AND LAND SOME PRISONERS

THE boys were sitting around having another smoke before crawling into their blankets, spread under the shade of the scraggly locusts and mangy cedars, when the dogs raised an alarm.

"Get back under the shadow of the trees, boys, and keep quiet," said Si.

"Hello, the house!" came out of the darkness at the foot of the hill.

"Hello, thar' yourself," answered Shorty, imitating Mrs. Bolster's voice.

"Hit's me—Brad Tingle. Don't yo' know my voice? Call off yer dogs. They'll eat me up."

"Hullo, Brad; is that yo'? Whar'd yo' come from? Git out, thar, Watch! Lay down, Tige! Begone, Bones! Come on up, Brad."

Shorty's imitations of Mrs. Bolster's voice and manner were so good as to deceive even the dogs, who changed their attitude of shrill defiance to one of fawning welcome.

"Whar'd yo' come from, Brad?" repeated Shorty as the newcomer made his way up the narrow, stony path.

"Jest from the Yankee camps," answered the newcomer. "Me an' Jim Wyatt's bin over thar by that236 Hoosier camp tryin' to git the drop on their Kurnel as he was gwine t' Brigade Headquarters. We a'most had him when a company o' Yankees that'd bin out in the country for something a'most run over us. They'uns wuz a-nigh on top o' we'uns afore we seed they'uns, an' then we'uns had t' scatter. Jim run one way an' me another. I come back here t' see ef yo' had any o' the boys here. I hearn tell that a passel o' Yankee ossifers is at a dance over at the Widder Brewster's an' I thought we'uns might done gether they'uns in ef we'uns went about it right."

"So you kin—so you kin," said Shorty, reaching out from behind the bushes and catching him by the collar. "And to show you how, I'll jest gether you in."

A harsh, prolonged, sibilant, far-reaching hiss came from the door of the cabin, but came too late to warn Brad Tingle of the trap into which he was walking.

Shorty understood it at once. He jerked Tingle forward into Si's strong clutch, and then walked toward the cabin, singing out angrily:

"Jeff Hackberry, I want you to make that wife o' your'n mind her own bisness, and let other people's alone. You and her've got quite enough to do to tend to your honeymoon, without mixing into things that don't concern you. Take her back to bed and keep her there."

He went back to where Si was disarming and searching Tingle. The prisoner had a United States musket, cartridge-box, canteen, and a new haversack, all of which excited Shorty's ire.237

"You hound, you," he said, taking him by the throat with a fierce grasp, "you've bin bushwhacking, and got these things off some soldier you sneaked onto and killed. We ought to kill you right now, like we would a dog."

"No, Mister, I haint killed nobody; I swar t' God I haint," gurgled the prisoner, trying to release his throat from Shorty's grip.

"Where'd you git these things?" demanded Shorty.

"Mrs. Bolster gi' me the gun an' cartridge-box; I done found the canteen in the road, an' the poke with the letters in hit the Yank had done laid down beside him when he stopped t' git a drink, an' me an' Jim crep' up on him an' ordered him to surrender. He jumped an' run, an' we wuz af eared to shoot least we bring the rest o' the Yanks down onto us."

At the mention of letters Si began eagerly examining the contents of the haversack. He held some of them down to the light of the fire, and then exclaimed excitedly:

"Why, boys, this is our mail. It was Will Gobright they were after."

A sudden change came over Shorty. He took the prisoner by the back of the neck and ran him up to the door of the house and flung him inside. Then he hastened back to the fire and said:

"Le's see them letters."

A pine-knot had been thrown on the fire to make a bright blaze, by the light of which Si was laboriously fumbling over the letters. Even by the flaring, uncertain glare it could be seen that a ruddy hue came into his face as he came across one with a gorgeous flag on one end of the envelope, and directed in a238 pinched, labored hand on straight lines scratched by a pin. He tried to slip the letter unseen by the rest into his blouse pocket, but fumbled it so badly that he dropped the rest in a heap at the edge of the fire.

"Look out, Si," said Shorty crossly, and hastily snatching the letters away from the fire. "You'll burn up somebody's letters, and then there'll be no end o' trouble. You're clumsier'n a foundered horse. Your fingers are all thumbs."

"Handle them yourself, if you think you kin do any better," said Si, who, having got all that he wanted, lost interest in the rest. If Si's fingers were all thumbs. Shorty's seemed all fists. Besides, his reading of handwriting was about as laborious as climbing a ladder. He tackled the lot bravely, though, and laboriously spelled out and guessed one address after another, until suddenly his eye was glued on a postmark that differed from the others. "Wis." first caught his glance, and he turned the envelope around until he had spelled out "Bad Ax" as the rest of the imprint. This was enough. Nobody else in the regiment got letters from Bad Ax, Wis. He fumbled the letter into his blouse pocket, and in turn dropped the rest at the edge of the fire, arousing protests from the other boys.

"Well, if any o' you think you kin do better'n I kin, take 'em up. There they are," said he. "You go over 'em, Tom Welch. I must look around a little."

Shorty secretly caressed the precious envelope in his pocket with his great, strong fingers, and pondered as to how he was going to get an opportunity to read the letter before daylight. It was too sacred239 and too sweet to be opened and read before the eyes of his unsympathetic, teasing comrades, and yet it seemed an eternity to wait till morning. He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye at Si, who was going through the same process, as he stood with abstracted air on the other side of the fire. The sudden clamor of the dogs recalled them to present duties.

"Hullo, the house!" came out of the darkness.

"Hullo, yourself!" replied Shorty, in Mrs. Bolster's tones.

"It's me—Groundhog. Call off yer dogs."

Si and Shorty looked startled, and exchanged significant glances. "Needn't 've told it was him," said Shorty. "I could smell his breath even this far. Hullo, Groundhog," he continued in loud tones. "Come on up. Git out, Watch! Lay down, Tige! Begone, Bones! Come on up, Groundhog. What's the news?"

A louder, longer, more penetrating hiss than ever sounded from the house. Shorty looked around angrily. Si made a break for the door.

"No, I can't come up now," said Groundhog; "I jest come by to see if things wuz all right. A company went out o' camp this mornin' for some place that I couldn't find out. I couldn't git word t' you, an' I've bin anxious 'bout whether it come this way."

"Never tetched us," answered Shorty, in perfect reproduction of Mrs. Bolster's accents. "We'uns is all right."

The hissing from the cabin became so loud that it seemed impossible for Groundhog not to hear it.240

"Blast it, Si, can't you gag that old guinea-hen," said Shorty, in a savage undertone.

Si was in the meanwhile muttering all sorts of savage threats at Mrs. Bolster, the least of which was to go in and choke the life out of her if she did not stop her signalling.

"Glad t' hear it," said Groundhog. "I was a leetle skeery all day about it, an' come out as soon's I could. Have yo' seed Brad Tingle?"

"Yes; seen him to-day."

"D' yo' know whar he is? Kin yo' git word to him quick?"

"Yes, indeed; right off."

"Well, send word to him as soon as you kin, that I've got the mules ready for stampedin' an' runnin' off at any time, an' waitin' for him. The sooner he kin jump the corral the better. To-night, if he kin, but suttinly not later'n to-morrer night. Be sure and git word to him by early to-morrer mornin' at the furthest."

"I'll be sure t' git word t' him this very night," answered the fictitious Mrs. Bolster.

"Well, good-night. I must hurry along, an' git back afore the second relief goes off. All my friends air on it. See yo' ter-morrer, if I kin."

"You jest bet you'll see me to-morrow," said Shorty grimly, as he heard Groundhog's mule clatter away. "If you don't see me the disappointment 'll come nigh breaking my heart. Now I'll go in and learn Mr. and Mrs. Hackberry how to spend the first night o' their wedded lives."

"I don't keer ef yo' do shoot me. I'd a heap ruther be shot than not," she was saying to Si as Shorty241 came up. "I've changed my mind sence I've bin put in here. I'd a heap ruther die than live with Jeff Hackberry."

"Never knowed married folks to git tired o' one another so soon," commented Shorty. "But I should've thought that Jeff' d got tired first. But this it no time to fool around with fambly jars. Look here, Jeff Hackberry, you must make that wife o' yourn keep quiet. If she tries to give another signal we'll tie you up by the thumbs now, besides shoot you in the mornin'."

"What kin I do with her?" whined Jeff.

"Do with her? You kin make her mind. That's your duty. You're the head o' the fambly."

"Head o' the fambly?" groaned Jeff, in mournful sarcasm. "Mister, you don't seem to be acquainted with 'Frony.

"Head o' the fambly," sneered his wife. "He aint the head o' nothin'. Not the head o' a pin. He haint no more head'n a fishworm."

"Look here, woman," said Shorty, "didn't you promise to love, honor and obey him?"

"No, I didn't nuther. I said I'd shove, hammer an' belay him. Hit's none o' yer bizniss, nohow, yo' sneakin' Yankee' what I do to him. You hain't no call t' mix betwixt him an' me. An' my mouth's my own. I'll use hit jest as I please, in spite o' yo' an' him, an' 40 others like yo'. Hear that?"

"Well, you git back into that bed, an' stay there, and don't you dare give another signal, or I'll buck-and-gag you on your wedding-night."

"Don't you dar tetch me," she said menacingly.

"I aint goin' to tech you. I'm too careful what I242 touch. But I'll tie you to that bed and gag you, if you don't do as I say. Get back into bed at once."

"I ain't gwine t', and yo' can't make me," she said defiantly.

"Take hold of her, Jeff," said Shorty, pulling out his bayonet and giving that worthy a little prod.

Jeff hesitated until Shorty gave him a more earnest prod, when he advanced toward his wife, but, as he attempted to lay his hands on her shoulders, she caught him, gave him a quick twist and a trip, and down he went; but he had clutched her to save himself from falling, and brought her down with him. Shorty caught her elbows and called to Si to bring him a piece of cord, with which he tied her arms. Another piece bound her ankles. She lay on the floor and railed with all the vehemence of her vicious tongue.

"Pick her up and lay her on the bed there," Shorty ordered Jeff. Jeff found some difficulty in lifting the tall, bony frame, but Shorty gave him a little help with the ponderous but agile feet, and the woman was finally gotten on the bed.

"Now, we'll gag you next, if you make any more trouble," threatened Shorty. "We don't allow no woman to interfere with military operations."

They had scarcely finished this when the dogs began barking again, and Si and Shorty hurried out. The operations in the house had rather heated them, the evening was warm, and Shorty had taken off his blouse and drawn it up inside of his belt, in the rear.

The noise of the dogs betokened the approach of something more than usual visitors. Through the clamor the boys' quick ears could detect the clatter243 of an ominous number of hoofs. The other boys heard it, too, and were standing around, gun in hand, waiting developments.

"Hullo, dere, de house!" came in a voice Si and Shorty dimly recognized having heard somewhere before.

"Hullo, yourself," answered Shorty. "Who air yo?"243

"I'm Capt. Littles," came back above the noise of barking. "Call off your togs. I'm all righdt. Is it all right up dere?"

"Yes. Lay down. Watch! Git out, Tige!" Shorty started to answer, when he was interrupted by the apparition of Mrs. Bolster-Hackberry flying out of the door, and yelling at the top of her voice:

"No, hit ain't all right at all. Captain. The Yankees 've got us. Thar's a right smart passel o' 'em here, with we'uns prisoners. Jump 'em, if you' kin. If yo' can't, skeet out an' git enough t' down 'em an' git us out."

Si and Shorty recognized that the time for words was passed. They snatched up their guns and fired in the direction of the hail. The other boys did the same. There was a patter of replying shots, aimed at the fire around which they had been standing, but had moved away from.

Apparently, Capt. Littles thought the Yankees were in too great force for him to attack, for his horses could be heard moving away. The boys followed them with shots aimed at the sound. Si and Shorty ran down forward a little ways, hoping to get a better sight. The rebels halted, apparently244 dis mounted, got behind a fence and began firing back at intervals.

Si and Shorty fired from the point they had gained, and drew upon themselves quite a storm of shots.

"Things look bad," said Si to Shorty. "They've halted there to hold us while they send for reinforcements. We'd better go back to the boys and get things in shape. Mebbe we'd better send back to camp for help."

"We'll wait till we find out more about 'em," said Shorty, as they moved back. They had to cross the road, upon the white surface of which they stood out in bold contrast and drew some shots which came uncomfortably close.

The other boys, after a severe struggle, had caught Mrs. Bolster- Hackberry and put her back in the cabin. After a brief consultation, it was decided to hold their ground until daylight. They could get into the cabin, and by using it as a fortification, stand off a big crowd of enemies. The rest of the boys were sent inside to punch out loop-holes between the logs, and make the place as defensible as possible. Si and Shorty were to stay outside and observe.

"I've got an idee how to fix that old woman," said Shorty suddenly.

"Buck-and-gag her?" inquired Si.

"No; we'll go in there and chuck her down that hole where she kept her whisky, and fasten the hasp in the staple."

"Good idee, if the hole will hold her."

"It's got to hold her. We can't have her245 rampaging round during the fight. I'd rather have a whole company o' rebels on my back."

They did not waste any words with the old woman, but despite her yells and protests Si took hold of one shoulder Shorty the other, and forced her down in the pit and closed the puncheon above her.

They went out again to reconnoiter. The enemy was quiet, apparently waiting. Only one shot, fired in the direction of the fire, showed that they were still there.

Shorty suddenly bethought him of his blouse, in the pocket of which was the precious letter. He felt for it. It was gone. He was stunned.

"I remember, now," he said to himself, "it was working out as I ran, and it slipped down as I climbed the fence."

He said aloud:

"Si, I've lost my blouse. I dropped it down there jest before we crossed the road. I'm goin' to get it."

"Blast the blouse," said Si; "let it be till mornin'. You need something worse'n a blouse to-night. You'll ketch a bullet sure's you're alive if you try to go acrost that road agin. They rake it."

"I don't care if they do," said Shorty desperately. "I'd go down there if a battery raked it. There's a letter in the pocket that I must have."

Si instinctively felt for the letter in his own pocket. "Very well," he said, "if you feel as if you must go I'll go along."

"No, you sha'n't. You stay here in command; it's your duty. You can't help if you do go. I'll go alone. I'll tell you what you might do, though. You might go over there to the left and fire on 'em, as if246 we wuz feelin' around that way. That'll draw some o' their attention."

Si did as suggested.

Shorty crept back to the point they had before occupied. The rebels saw him coming over a httle knoll, and fired at him. He ran for the fence. He looked over at the road, and thought he saw the blouse lying in the ditch on the opposite side. He sprang over the fence and ran across the road. The rebels had anticipated this and sent a volley into the road. One bullet struck a small stone, which flew up and smote Shorty's cheek so sharply that he reeled. But he went on across, picked up the blouse, found the dear letter, and deliberately stopped in the road until he transferred it to the breast of his shirt. Then he sprang back over the fence, and stopped there a moment to rest. He could hear the rebel Captain talking to his men, and every moment the accents of the voice became more familiar.

"Don't vaste your shods," he was saying. "Don'd vire undil you sees somedings to shood ad, unt den vire to hid. See how many shods you haf alretty vired mitout doing no goot. You must dink dat ammunition's as blenty as vater in de Southern Confederacy. If you hat as much druble as I haf to ket cartridges you vould pe more garcful of dem."

Capt. Littles was Rosenbaum, the Jew spy, masquerading in a new role. Shorty's heart leaped. Instantly he thought of a way to let Rosenbaum know whom he had run up against.

"Corporal Si Klogg!" he called out in his loudest tones.

"What is it, Shorty?" answered the wondering Si.247

"Don't let any more o' the boys shoot over there to the left. That's the way Capt. McGillicuddy's a-comin' in with Co. Q. I think I kin see him now jest raisin' the hill. Yes, I'm sure it's him."

The next instant he heard the rebel Captain saying to his men:

"Boys, dey're goming up in our rear. Dey're de men ve saw a liddle vhile ago. De only vay is to mount unt make a rush past de house. All mount unt vollow me as vast as dey gan."

There was a gallop of horsemen up the road, and they passed by like the wind, while Si and Shorty fired as fast as they could load—Shorty over their heads. Si at the noise. Just opposite the house the Captain's horse stumbled, and his rider went over his head into a bank of weeds. The rest swept on, not heeding the mishap.

"Surrender, Levi," said Shorty, running up.

"Certainly, my tear poy," said Rosenbaum. "Anyding dat you vant. How are you, any vay? Say, dat vas a nead drick, vasn't it? Haf your horse sdumble unt trow you jest ad de righd dime unt place? It dook me a long dime to deach my horse dot. I'm mighty glat to see you."

248

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XVIII. THE JEW SPY AGAIN MR. ROSENBAUM RECITES A THRILLING EXPERIENCE

"HIST, boys, don't talk friendly to me out loud," said the prudent Rosenbaum. "What's happened? I know you have got the house. I have been expecting for a long time that there would be a raid made upon it. What the devil is that saying you have: 'It's a long worm that don't have a turn.' No; that isn't it. 'It's an ill lane that blows nobody no good.' No; that's not it, neither. Well, anyway, Mrs. Sophronia unt her crowd got entirely too bold. They played too open, unt I knew they'd soon get ketched. Who did you get in the house?"

Si started to call over the names, and to recite the circumstances, but as he reached that of Brad Tingle, Rosenbaum clutched him by the arm and said earnestly:

"Hold on. Tell me the rest after a while. I'm afraid of that man. He's come pretty near getting on to me several times already. He's listening now, unt he'll be sure to suspect something if he don't hear you treating me as you did the others. Begin swearing at me as you did at the rest."

Si instantly took the hint.

"I'll stand no more foolishness," he called out249 angrily. "If you don't surrender at once I'll blow your rebel head off."

"I have to give up," Rosenbaum replied in an accent of pain, "for I believe I broke my leg when I fell. I find I can't stand up."

"Give up your arms, then, and we'll help you up to the fire, and see how badly you're hurt," said Si.

Rosenbaum gave groans of anguish as Si and Shorty picked him up and carried him over to the fire.

"Now we're out of ear-shot o' the house," said Si, as they deposited him on the opposite side, and somewhat behind a thicket of raspberries, "and we can talk. Where did you come from this time, Levi?"

"Straight from General Bragg's Headquarters at Tullahoma, and I have got information that will make General Rosecrans's heart jump for joy. I have got the news he has been waiting for all these weeks to move his army. I have got the number of Bragg's men, just where they are stationed, and how many is at each place. I'm crazy to get to General Rosecrans with the news. I have been cavorting around the country all day trying some way to get in, unt at my wits' ent, for some of the men with me had their suspicions of me, unt wouldn't have hesitated to shoot me, if they didn't like the way I was acting. To tell the truth, it's been getting pretty hot for me over there in the rebel lines. Too many men have seen me in Yankee camps. This man. Brad Tingle, has seen me twice at General Rosecrans's Headquarters, unt has told a lot of stories that made much trouble. I think that this is the last250 visit I'll pay General Bragg. I'm fond of visiting, but it rather discourages me to be so that I can't look at a limb running out from a tree without thinking that it may be where they will hang me."

"Excuse me from any such visitin'," said Si sympathetically. "I'd much rather stay at home. I've had 12 or 15 hours inside the enemy's lines, playin' off deserter, and I've had enough to last me my three years. I'll take any day o' the battle o' Stone River in preference. I ain't built for the spy business in any shape or form. I'm plain, out-and-out Wabash prairie style—everything above ground and in sight."

"Well, I'm different from you," said Shorty. "I own up that I'm awfully fond o' a game o' hocuspocus with the rebels, and tryin' to see which kin thimble-rig the other. It's mighty excitin' gamblin' when your own head's the stake, an' beats poker an' faro all holler. But I want the women ruled out o' the game. Never saw a game yit that a woman wouldn't spile if she got her finger in."

"Mrs. Bolster came mighty near marrying him, and he's pale yet from the scare," Si explained.

"Yes," said Shorty frankly. "You'll see I'm still while all around the gills. Never wuz so rattled in my life. That woman's a witch. You could only kill her by shooting her with a silver bullet. She put a spell on me, sure's you're a foot high. Lord, wouldn't I like to be able to manage her. I'd set her up with a faro-bank or a sweat-board, and she'd win all the money in the army in a month."

"Yes, she's a terror," accorded Rosenbaum. "She251 made up her mind to marry me when I first come down here. I was awfully scared, for I was sure she saw through me sharper than the men did, and would marry me or expose me. But I got some points on her about poisoning a neighboring woman that she hated unt was jealous of, unt then I played an immediate order from General Bragg to me to report to his Headquarters. But it took all the brains I had to keep her off me."

"She's safe now from marryin' anybody for awhile," said Shorty, and he related the story of her nuptials, which amused Rosenbaum greatly.

"But you have signed Jeff Hackberry's death warrant," he said. "If he tries to live with her she'll feed him wild parsnip, unt he'll get a house of red clay, that you put the roof on with a shovel. It'll be no great loss. Jeff ain't worth in a year the bread he'll eat in a day."

"She may be smothered in that hole," Shorty bethought himself. "I guess we'd better let her out for awhile."

"Yes," said Rosenbaum. "She can't do no harm now. Nobody else will come this way to-night. The men that were with me will scatter the news that the house is in Yankee hands. They think there's a big force here, unt so we won't be disturbed till morning."

"Then I'll go in and let her out," said Shorty.

The other inmates of the cabin were asleep when he entered, but they waked up, and begged him not to let the woman out until morning.

"Keep her in there till daylight," said 'Squire Corson, "and then restore me to my home and functions,252 and I'll call out a posse comitatus, and have her publicly ducked, according to the laws of the land, as a common scold. I've never heard such vile language as she applied to me when I gave her the advice it was my duty to give to live in peace and quietness with her husband. That there woman's a Niagary of cuss words and abuse."

"If yo' let her out, take me outside with yo'," begged Jeff Hackberry. "She'll kill me, sho', if I've to stay in here till mornin' with her. She begun by flingin' a bag o' red pepper in my face, and set us all to sneezin' until I thought the 'Squire'd sneeze his durned head off. Then she jobbed me with a bayonet, and acted as no woman orter act toward her lawful husband, no matter how long they'd bin married, let alone their weddin' night."

"Sorry, but it's agin all my principles to separate man and wife," said Shorty, as he moved to the puncheon trap-door and undid the hasp. "You took her for better or worse, and it's too early in the game to complain that you found her a blamed sight worse than you took her for. You're one now, you know, and must stay that way until death do you part."

Shorty lifted up the trap-door, and Si helped the woman out with some difficulty. They expected a torrent of abuse, but she seemed limp and silent, and sank down on the floor. The boys picked her up and laid her on the bed beside Jeff Hackberry. "She's fainted; she's dead. She's bin sufferkated in that hole," said Jeff.

"No, yo' punkin-headed fool," she gasped. "I hain't dead, nor I hain't fainted, nor I hain't253 sufferkated. Yo'll find out when I git my wind back a little, I'm so full o' mad an' spite that I'm done tuckered clean out. I'm clean beat, so clean beat that I hain't no words to fit the 'casion. I've got t' lay still an' think an' gether up some."

"She's comin' to, Shorty," said Si. "It'll be pleasanter outside."

"You say you have been having unusually exciting times," said Si to Rosenbaum, as the boys again seated themselves by the fire.

"Veil, I should say so," replied Rosenbaum with emphasis. "Do you know that General Bragg is the very worst man that ever lived?"

"All rebels are bad," said Shorty oracularly. "But I suppose that some are much worse than others. I know that the private soldiers are awful, and I suppose the higher you go the wuss they are. The Corporals are cussider than the privates, the Sergeants can give the Corporals points in devilishness, and so it goes on up until the General commanding an army must be one of the devil's favorite imps, while Jeff Davis is Old Horney's junior partner."

"No; it isn't that," said Rosenbaum. "I've known a good many rebel Generals, unt some of them ain't really bad fellers, outside of their rebelness. But old Bragg is a born devil. He has no more heart than a rattlesnake. He actually loves cruelty. He'd rather kill men than not. I've seen plenty of officers who were entirely too willing to shoot men for little or nothing. General Bragg is the only man I ever saw who would shoot men for nothing at all—just 'for example,' as he says, unt to make the others254 afraid unt ready to obey him. He coolly calculates to shoot so many every month. If they've done anything to deserve it, all right. If they hain't, he shoots them all the same, just to 'preserve discipline.'"

Si and Shorty uttered exclamations of surprise at this cold-blooded cruelty.

"I know it's hard to believe," said Rosenbaum, "but it's true all the same, as anybody around his Headquarters will tell you. Jeff Davis knows it unt approves it. He is the same kind of a man as General Bragg—no more heart than a tiger, I have seen a good deal of the inside of the rebel army, unt General Bragg is the coldest-blooded, cruelest man in it or in the whole world. It's true that the men he orders shot are generally of no account, like our man Jeff Hackberry—but it's the principle of the thing that shocks me. He just takes a dislike to the way a man looks or acts, or the way he parts his hair, looks at him with his steely-gray eyes, unt says coldly: 'Put him in the bull-pen.' In the bullpen the poor devil goes, unt the next time General Bragg gets an idea that the discipline of the army is running down, unt he must stiffen it up with a few executions, he orders all the men that happen to be in the bull-pen taken out unt shot."

"Without any trial, any court-martial, any evidence against them?" gasped Si.

"Absolutely without anything but General Bragg's orders. It is like you read of in the books about those Eastern countries where the Sultan or other High-muk-a-muk says, 'Cut that man's head off,' unt the man's head is cut off, unt no questions asked.255 unt no funeral ceremonies except washing up the blood."

"Lucky for you, Levi," said Shorty, "that he didn't have any of the common prejudices against Jews, and slap you in the bull-pen."

"O, but he did," said Rosenbaum. "He hated a Jew worse than any man I ever met. Unt it brought me so near death that I actually watched them digging my grave.

"While I had my ups unt downs, unt some very narrow escapes," continued Rosenbaum, "when I first went inside Bragg's lines, I got along very well generally. I played the peddler unt smuggler for the Southern Confederacy in great shape, unt run them through a lot of gun-caps, quinine, medicines, unt so so on, unt brought in a great deal of information which they found to be true. Some of dis General Rosecrans gave me himself, for he is smart enough to know that if he wants his Secret Service men to succeed he must give them straight goods to carry to the enemy.

"I brought in exact statements of what divisions, brigades unt regiments were at this place unt that place, how many men was in them, who their commanders were, unt so on. General Rosecrans would have these given me. It helped him in his plans to know just what information was reaching the enemy, for he knew just how old Bragg would act when he had certain knowledge. If he knew that Sheridan with 6,000 men was at this place, with Tom Wood 10 miles away with 6,000 more, he would do a certain thing, unt Rosecrans would provide for it. The news that I brought in the rebels could test by256 the reports they got from others, unt they always found mine correct.

"My work pleased the rebel Generals so well that they made me a Captain in their army, transferred me from Brigade Headquarters to Division, unt then to Corps Headquarters. I was given command of squads of scouts. I can draw very well, unt I made good maps of the country unt the roads, with the positions of Yankee unt rebel forces. This was something that the other rebel spies could not do, unt it helped me lots. I was careful to make copies of all these maps, unt they got to General Rosecrans's Headquarters.

"The other rebel spies got very jealous of me because I was promoted over them, unt they laid all sorts of plans to trip me up. They came awful near catching me several times, but I was too smart for them, unt could outwit them whenever I got a pointer as to what they were up to. Once they watched me go to a hollow sycamore tree, which I used as a postoffice for Jim Jones to get the things I wanted to send to General Rosecrans. They found there maps I had made at Shelbyville, with the positions of the rebel un Yankee forces unt the fortifications all shown.

"That was an awful close call, unt I could feel the rope tightening around my neck. But I kept my nerve, unt told a straight story. I said that that tree was my regular office where I kept lots of things that I was afraid to carry around with me when I was in danger of falling into the Yankee hands, as I was every day when I was scouting. Luckily for me I had some other private things unt a lot of257 Confederate money hid there, too, which I showed them. They didn't more than half believe my story, but they led me off, probably because they needed me so bad.

"I saw that the thing was only skimmed over, unt was ready to break out again any minute worse than ever, unt I kept my eyes peeled all the time. That's one reason why you have not seen me for so long. I didn't dare send General Rosecrans anything or go near outside the rebel lines. I had to play very good, but I kept gathering up information for the day when I should make a final break unt leave the rebels for good.

"A week ago I was ordered to go up to General Bragg's Headquarters to help them with their maps unt reports. They had nobody there that could do the work, unt Jeff Davis, who always wants to know everything about the armies, was bunching them up savagely for full information. He wanted accurate statements about the Yankee strength unt positions, unt about the rebel strength unt positions, to see if he couldn't do something to pull the Yankees off of Pemberton at Vicksburg. Bragg's Adjutant-General sent word through all the army for to find good rapid penmen unt map-makers, unt I was sent up.

"The Adjutant-General set me to work under a fly near Headquarters, unt he was tickled almost to death with the way I did my work. Old Bragg himself used to walk up unt down near, growling unt cussing unt swearing at everything unt everybody. Once or twice the Adjutant-General called his attention to my work. Old Bragg just looked it over, grunted, unt bored me through unt through with258 those sharp, cold, gray eyes of his. But I thought I was safe so long as I was at Headquarters, unt I gave a great stiff to other Secret Service men who had been trying to down me.

Old Bragg Used to Walk up Unt Down, Growling Unt Cussing. 259

"One morning old Bragg was in an awful temper—the worst I had ever seen. Every word unt order was a cruelty to somebody. Finally, up comes this Brad Tingle that you have inside. He is a sort of a half-spy—not brains enough to be a real one, but with a good deal of courage unt activity to do small work. He had been sent by General Cheatham to carry some papers unt make a report. Whatever it was, it put old Bragg in a worse temper than ever. Brad Tingle happened to catch sight of me, unt he said in a surprised way:

"'Why, there's that Jew I saw sitting in General Rosecrans's tent talking to him, when I was playing off refugee Tennesseean in the Yankee camps.'

"'What's that? What's that, my man?' said old Bragg, who happened to overhear him.

"Brad Tingle told all he knew about me. Old Bragg turned toward me unt give me such a look. I could feel those cold, cruel eyes boring straight through me.

"'Certainly he is a Jew, unt one of old Rosecrans's best spies,' he said. 'Old Rosecrans is a Jew, a Dutch Jew, himself. I knowed him well in the old army. He's got a regular Jew face. He plays off Catholic, but that is to hide his Jewishness. He can't do it. That hook nose'd give him away if nothing else did, unt he has got enough else. He likes to have Jews about him, because he understands them better than he does white people, unt259 particularly he is fond of Jew spies. He can trust them where nobody else can. They'll be true to him because he is a Jew. Put that man in the bull-pen, unt shoot him with the rest to-morrow morning.' "'Heavens,' gasped the Adjutant-General; 'he is260 by far the best man I ever had. I can't get along without him.'

"'You must get along without him,' said old Bragg. 'I'm astonished at you having such a man around. Where in the world did you pick him up? But it's just like you. How in God's name Jeff Davis expects me to command an army with such makeshifts of staff officers as he sends me, I don't know. He keeps the best for old Lee unt sends me what nobody else'll have, unt then expects me to win battles against a better army than the Army of the Potomac. I never got a staff officer that had brains once.'

"A Sergeant of the Provost Guard, who was a natural beast, unt was kept by old Bragg because he was glad to carry out orders to murder men, caught hold of me by my shoulder unt run me down to the bull-pen, leaving the Adjutant-General with forty expressions on his angry face.

"My goodness, my heart sunk worse than ever before when I heard the door shut behind me. There were 30 or 40 others in the bull-pen. They were all lying around—dull, stupid, sullen, silent, unt hopeless. They hardly paid any attention to me. I sat down on a log, unt my heart seemed to sink clear out of me. For the first time in my life I couldn't see the slightest ray of hope. Through the cracks in the bull-pen I could see the fresh graves of the men who had already been shot, unt while I looked I saw a squad of niggers come out unt begin digging the graves of those who were to be shot to-morrow. I could see rebel soldiers unt officers passing by, stop unt look a moment at the graves, shrug their261 shoulders, unt go on. It froze my blood to think that tomorrow they would be looking at my grave that way. After a while a man came in unt gave each one of us a piece of cornbread unt meat. The others ate theirs greedily, but I could not touch it. Night came on, unt still I sat there. Suddenly the door opened, unt the Adjutant-General came in with a man about my size and dressed something like me. As he passed he caught hold of my arm in a sort of way that made me understand to get up unt follow behind him, I did so at once without saying a word. I walked behind him around the bull-pen until we came back to the door, when the guard presented arms, unt he walked out, with me still behind him, leaving the other man inside. After we had gone a little way he stopped unt whispered to me:

"'The General had to go off in a hurry toward War Trace this afternoon. He took the Provost-Sergeant unt part of his staff with him, but I had to be left behind to finish up this work. I can't get anybody else to do it but you. I'm going to take you over to a cabin, where you'll be out of sight. I want you to rush that work through as fast as the Lord'll let you. After you get it done you can go where you damned please, so long as you don't let the General set eyes on you. I've saved your life, unt I'm going to trust to your honor to play fair with me. Help me out, do your work right, unt then never let me see you again.'

"Of course, I played fair. I asked no questions, you bet, about the poor devil he had put in my place. I worked all that night unt all the next day getting his papers in the best possible shape, unt in making262 copies of them for General Rosecrans, which I stuck behind the chimney in the cabin. Along in the morning I heard the drums beating as the men were marched out to witness the execution. It made my heart thump a little, but I kept on scratching away with my pen for hfe unt death. Then the drums stopped beating for a while, unt then they begun again. Then I heard a volley that made me shiver all over. Then the drums beat as the men were marched back to their camps. If I had had time to think I should have fainted. Towards evening I had got everything in first- class shape. The Adjutant-General came in. He looked over the papers in a very satisfied way, folded them up, checked off from a list a memorandum of the papers he had given me to copy unt compile, unt saw that I had given them all back to him. Then he looked me straight in the eye unt said:

"'Now, Jew, there's no use of my saying anything to you. You heard that volley this morning, unt understood it. Never let me or the General lay eyes on you again. You have done your part all right, unt I mine. Good- by.'

"He took his papers unt walked out of the cabin. As soon as he was gone I snatched the copies that I had hidden behind the chimney, stuck them here unt there in my clothes, unt started for the outer lines.

"I made my way to a house where I knew I'd find some men who had scouted with me before. I knew they might be suspicious of me, but I could get them to go along by pretending to have orders from Headquarters for a scout. I got to the house by morning, found some of them there, gathered up some more263 unt have been riding around all day, looking at the Yankee lines, unt trying to find some way to get inside. I'm nearly dead for sleep, but I must have these papers in General Rosecrans's hands before I close my eyes."

"Your horse is all right, isn't he?" asked Shorty.

"Yes, I think so," answered Rosenbaum.

"Well, we have a good horse here. I'll mount him and go with you to camp, leaving Si and the rest of the boys here. I can get back to them by daylight."

So it was agreed upon.

Day was just breaking when Shorty came galloping back.

"Turn out, boys!" he shouted. "Pack up, and start back for camp as quick as you kin. The whole army's on the move."

"What's happened, Shorty?" inquired Si, as they all roused themselves and gathered around.

"Well," answered Shorty, rather swelling with the importance of that which he had to communicate, "all I know is that we got into camp a little after midnight, and went direct to Gen. Rosecrans's Headquarters. Of course, the old man was up; I don't believe that old hook-nosed duffer ever sleeps. He was awful glad to see Rosenbaum, and gave us both great big horns o' whisky, which Rosenbaum certainly needed, if I didn't, for he was dead tired, and almost flopped down after he handed his papers to the General. But the General wanted him to stay awake, and kept plying him with whisky whenever he would begin to sink, and, my goodness, the questions he did put at that poor Jew.264

"I thought we knowed something o' the country out here around us, but, Jerusalem, all that we know wouldn't make a primer to Rosecrans's Fifth Reader. How were the bridges on this road? Where did that road lead to? How deep was the water in this creek? How many rebels were out there? Where was Bragg's cavalry? Where's his reserve artillery? And so on, until I thought he'd run a seine through every water-hole in that Jew's mind and dragged out the last minner in it. I never heard the sharpest lawyer put a man through such a cross-examination.

"Rosenbaum was equal to everything asked him, but it seemed to me that Gen. Rosecrans knowed a great deal more about what was inside the rebel lines than Rosenbaum did. All this time they was goin' over the papers that Rosenbaum brung, and Old Rosey seemed tickled to death to git 'em. He told Rosenbaum he'd done the greatest day's work o' his life and made his fortune.

"In the meantime the whole staff had waked up and gathered in the tents, and while the General was pumpin' Rosenbaum he was sending orders to this General and that General, and stirrin' things up from Dan to Beersheba. Lord, you ought t've seen that army wake up. I wouldn't 've missed it for a farm. Everything is on the move—right on the jump. We're goin' for old Bragg for every cent we're worth, and we want to git back to the regiment as quick as our leg'll carry us. Hustle around, now."

"But what'er we goin' to do with our prisoners?" asked Si.

"Blast the prisoners!" answered Shorty with profane emphasis. "Let 'em go to blue blazes, for all265 that we care. We're after bigger game than a handful o' measly pennyroyal sang-diggers. We hain't no time to fool with polecats when we're huntin' bears. Go off and leave 'em here."

"That's all right," said Si, to whom an idea occurred. "Hustle around, boys, but don't make no noise. We'll march off so quietly that they won't know that we're gone, and it'll be lots o' fun thinking what they'll do when they wake up and begin clapper-clawin' one another and wonderin' what their fate'll be."

END BOOK THREE

SI KLEGG EXPERIENCES OF SI AND SHORTY ON THE GREAT TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN.

By John McElroy

Book Four

Published By

The National Tribune Co.,

Washington, D. C.

Second Edition

Copyright 1910

THE SIX VOLUMES SI KLEGG, Book I, Transformation From a Raw Recruit SI KLEGG, Book II, Through the Stone River Campaign SI KLEGG, Book III, Meets Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy SI KLEGG, Book IV, On The Great Tullahoma Campaign SI KLEGG, Book V, Deacon's Adventures At Chattanooga SI KLEGG, Book VI, Enter On The Atlanta Campaign

'don't Call Me Your Gran'pap.' 37

frontispiece (95K)

titlepage (45K)

CONTENTS

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Preface

SI KLEGG

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XX. STEWED CHICKEN

List of Illustrations

During the Halt for Dinner. 20

'Don't Call Me Your Gran'pap.' 35

Here Goes, Mebbe to Libbey Prison. 55

I'm All on Fire 77

Si and Shorty Were the First to Mount The Parapet. 91

The Bluff Worked 107

She Ran Like a Deer, But si Cut Her off 123

You Must'nt Kill a Wounded Man 143

"Father, There's a Couple of Soldiers out There." 159

The First Wad Came out Easily and All Right. 165

'Annabel, How Purty You Look.' 173

The Recruits Lined up on the Platform. 186

They Posted the Men Behind The Trees. 197

They Had a Delirious Remembrance of the Mad Whirl. 211

The Dead Being Collected After the Battle. 220

"Pap, is That You?" Said a Weak Voice. 238

"He Took Another Look at his Heavy Revolver." 254

"If You Don't Skip out O' Here This Minute I'll Bust Your Head As I Would a Punkin." 264

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Preface

"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.

These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Govern ment. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had some times, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.

THE PUBLISHERS.

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE RANK AND FILE OF THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.

SI KLEGG

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I. THE TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN ON TO DUCK RIVER "ONLY 25 MILES TO SHELBYVILLE."

JUNE 23, 1863, ended the Army of the Cumberland's six months of wearisome inaction around Murfreesboro its half-year of tiresome fort- building, drilling, picketing and scouting.

Then its 60,000 eager, impatient men swept forward in combinations of masterful strategy, and in a brief, wonderfully brilliant campaign of nine days of drenching rain drove Bragg out of his strong fortifications in the rugged hills of Duck River, and compelled him to seek refuge in the fastnesses of the Cumberland Mountains, beyond the Tennessee River.

"Now," said Shorty, as they stood in line, waiting the order to move, "as Old Rosy has clearly waked up to business, I hope to gracious that Mr. Bragg will be found at home ready for callers. We've wasted six months waiting for him to get good and ready, and he certainly ought to be in trim to transact any little business we may have with him."

"I think you needn't trouble yourself about that, Shorty," said Capt. McGillicuddy. "All the news is that Bragg is down there in Shelbyville in force, and with blood in his eye. Somebody is going to be terribly whipped before the end of the week, and I'm pretty sure it won't be the Army of the Cumberland."

"Well, let's have it over and done with," said Si. "It's got to be fought out some time, and the sooner the better. I wish the whole thing could be fought to a finish to-morrow. Then I'd know at once whether I'm to live through this war."

"I don't think you'll be kept long in suspense," replied Capt. McGillicuddy. "Shelbyville is only 25 miles away. We can't go forward many hours with out forcing a collision as to the right of way. If we can whip Bragg behind the works he has been building for the last six months, we'll settle the whole business for the Southern Confederacy in the West. Grant will take Vicksburg, and then we'll have peace."

"Only 25 miles," repeated Shorty. "We ought to be squarely up against them not later than to-morrow night and one or two days' lively pounding ought to make Mr. Bragg holler enough."

"Rosenbaum is as certain as he is of his life," said Si to the Captain and the rest, "that Bragg has the bulk of his army at Shelbyville, which, as you say, is but 25 miles from here, and that he will draw the rest in and fight us behind the awfully big forts that he has been building for the last six months from Shelbyville to War Trace. Rosenbaum says that he knows it for a fact that 3,000 negroes have been worked on the forts ever since Bragg retreated there last January."

"Well, 25 miles isn't far to go for a fight," returned Shorty. "All that I ask is that the 200th Ind. be given the advance. We'll make schedule time to ward Shelbyville, and bring on the fight before early candle- lightin' to-morrow evening."

"I guess you'll have your wish, Shorty," returned Capt. McGillicuddy. "We lead the brigade to-day, anyway, and we'll try to keep the lead clear through."

Then the rain poured down so violently that all the conversation was suspended, except more or less profane interjections upon the luck of the Army of the Cumberland in never failing to bring on a deluge when it started to march.

In the midst of this the bugles sounded "For ward!" and the 200th Ind. swung out on the Shelby ville Pike, and set its face sternly southward. After it trailed the rest of the brigade, then the ambulances and wagons, and then the rest of the division.

At times the rain was actually blinding, but the men plodded on doggedly and silently. They had ex austed their epithets at the start, and now settled down to stolid endurance.

"We've only got to go 25 miles, boys," Si would occasionally say, by way of encouragement. "This rain can't last forever at this rate. It'll probably clear up bright just as we reach Shelbyville to-morrow, and give us sunshine to do our work in."

But when the column halted briefly at noon, for dinner for the men and mules, it was raining harder and steadier than ever. It was difficult to start fires with the soaked rails and chunks, all were wet to the skin, and rivulets of water ran from them as they stood or walked. The horses of the officers seemed shrunken and drawn-up, and the mud was getting deeper every minute.

"Lucky we had the advance," said the optimistic Si. "We have churned the roads into a mortar-bed, and them that comes after us will have hard pullin'. I wonder how many miles we've made of them 25?"

"I feel that we've already gone full 25," said Shorty. "But Tennessee miles's made o' injy-rubber, and stretch awfully."

They were too ill-humored to talk much, but stood around and sipped their hot coffee and munched sodden crackers and fried pork in silence. Pork fried in the morning in a half-canteen, and carried for hours in a dripping haversack, which reduced the crackers to a tasteless mush, is not an appetizing viand; but the hunger of hard exercise in the open air makes it "go."

Again the bugles sounded "Forward," and they plodded on more stolidly than ever.

Increasing evidences of the enemy's presence be gan to stimulate them. Through the sheets of rain they saw a squad of rebel cavalry close to them. There was much snapping of damp gun-caps on both sides, a few unavailing shots were actually fired, and they caught glimpses between the rain-gusts of the rebel horsemen galloping up the muddy road to ward the rising hills.

They pushed forward with more spirit now. They came to insignificant brooks which were now raging torrents, through which they waded waist deep, first placing their treasured ammunition on their shoulders or heads.

As they were crossing one of these, Si unluckily stepped into a deep hole, which took him in over his head. His foot struck a stone, which rolled, and down he went. Shorty saw him disappear, made a frantic clutch for him, and went down himself. For a brief tumultuous instant they bobbed around against the legs of the other boys, who went down like tenpins. Nearly the whole of Co. Q was at once floundering in the muddy torrent, with the Captain, who had succeeded in crossing, looking back in dis may at the disaster. The Orderly-Sergeant and a few others at the head of the company rushed in and pulled out by the collars such of the boys as they could grab. Si and Shorty came to the bank a little ways down, blowing and sputtering, and both very angry.

During the Halt for Dinner. 19

"All your infernal clumsiness," shouted Shorty. "You never will look where you're goin'. No more sense than a blind hoss."

"Shut up," said Si, wrathfully. "Don't you talk about clumsiness. It was them splay feet o' your'n that tripped me, and then you downed the rest o' the boys. Every mite of our grub and ammunition's gone."

How far the quarrel would have gone cannot be told, for at that instant a regiment of rebels, which had been pushed out in advance, tried to open a fire upon the 200th Ind. from behind a rail fence at the bottom of the hill. Only enough of their wet guns could be gotten off to announce their presence. The Colonel of the 200th Ind. yelled:

"Companies left into line!"

The soggy men promptly swung around.

"Fix bayonets! Forward, double-quick!" shouted the Colonel.

It was a sorry "double-quick," through the pelting rain, the entangling weeds and briars, and over the rushing streams which flooded the field, but it was enough to discourage the rebels, who at once went back in a heavy-footed run to the works on the hill, and the rebel cannon boomed out to cover their retreat.

"Lie down!" shouted the Colonel, as they reached the fence, and a shell struck a little in advance, filling the air with mud and moist fragments of vegetation.

As they lay there and recovered their breath there was much splashing and splattering of mud, much running to and fro, much galloping of Aids in their rear. The 200th Ind. was ordered to hold its place, and be ready for a charge upon the hill when it received orders. The brigade's battery was rushed up to a hill in the rear, and opened a fire on the rebel guns. The other regiments were deployed to the right and left to outflank the rebel position.

Si and Shorty and the rest of Co. Q put in the time trying to get their guns dry and borrowing ammunition from the men of the other companies. Both were jobs of difficulty and doubtful success. There could be no proper drying of guns in that incessant drench, and nobody wanted to open up his stock of cartridges in such a rain.

In the intervals between the heavier showers glimpses could be had of the "Kankakee Suckers" and the "Maumee Muskrats" working their way as fast as they could around toward the rebel flanks. The rebel artillery, seeing most danger from them, began throwing shells in their direction as they could be caught sight of through the rain and the opening in the trees.

"Why don't they order us forward with the bayonets?" fretted Si. "We can scatter them. Their guns ain't in no better shape than ours. If they hold us here, the Illinoy and Ohio fellers 'll git all the credit."

"The Colonel's orders are explicit," said the Adjutant, who happened to be near, "not to move until the head of one of the other regiments can be seen on the hills to the right or left. Then we're all to go forward together."

"Yes," grumbled Shorty, "and we'll jest git there in time to see them Illinoy Suckers hog everything. You kin see 'em limberin' up and preparing to git. Just our dumbed luck."

It turned out just as Shorty had predicted. The rebel commander had kept a wary eye on the other regiments, and as he saw them gain the point of vantage in the open, where they could make a rush upon him, he ordered a quick retreat. The other regiments raised a yell and charged straight home. By the time the 200th Ind. could reach the gap the other regiments were in full possession, and the rebels out of musket-shot in the valley beyond.

"I told you so," snorted the irate Shorty. "Now we've lost the advance. To-morrow we'll have to take them other fellers' mud, and pry their teams out o' the holes."

"I wonder how many o' them 25 miles toward Shelbyville we've made to- day?" asked Si.

"I heard the Adjutant say," said one of his comrades, "that we'd come just six miles."

"Jewhillikins," said Shorty sorrowfully.

Thus ended the first day of the Tullahoma campaign.

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II. THE BALKY MULES SUGGESTIONS GALORE "SHELBYVILLE ONLY 18 MILES AWAY."

NEVER was there so wild a storm but there was a wilder one; never such a downpour of rain but there could be a greater deluge.

"Seemed to me yesterday," said Si, on the morning of June 25, as he vainly tried to peer through the dashing drench and locate some of the other regiments of the division, "that they was givin' us one of Noah's Deluge days that they'd happened to have left over. Seemed that it couldn't be no worse, but this beats it. I don't think that standin' under Niagara Falls could be no worse. Howsomever, this can't last long. There ain't water enough in the United States to keep this up a great while."

"Don't be so sure o' that," said Shorty, handing Si the end of a blanket, that he might help wring it out. "I believe the Lord sometimes thinks that He didn't divide the land and water jest right in the first place, and that He'd better 've made a big lake o' Tennessee instead o' these old clay knobs for rebels and niggers to roost on, and He starts in to carry out that idee. I wish He'd finish the job at once, and turn the whole blasted region over to the navy. It looks as if He had that in mind now."

"Well," said the ever-hopeful Si, "the Bible says that the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. If it's tough on us, it's jest as tough on them. Their guns wouldn't go off any better'n ours yesterday. If that regiment in front of us could've shot like they can on a dry day they'd 've made a sick time for us."

About 60,000 Union soldiers and 45,000 rebels struggled through the deluges of rain, the torrential streams and fathomless mud those June days, when it seemed that every water-gate of the heavens was wide open as it had never been before.

The calamity that Si and Shorty had foreseen came about. The 200th Ind. lost the advance of the brigade and brought up the rear, which meant a long day of muscle-straining, temper-wrecking struggles with stalling wagons, discouraged mules and stupid teamsters. And as Co. Q was the left of the regiment, it caught the worst of all.

The 200th Ind. had scarcely pulled out of camp when its troubles became acute. At the foot of the hill which had been carried the day before ran a brook, ordinarily quite a modest stream, but now raging like a mill- race. The two other regiments of the brigade and all of the 200th Ind. but Co. Q had managed to get across by means of trees which had been felled over the stream at various places. Co. Q was left behind to see that the teams got over, while the rest of the 200th Ind. was halted on the farther bank, to watch the operation and give help if needed. Si, with a squad in which was Shorty, was ordered to take the first team, which it happened Groundhog drove, down into the stream and start it across.

"Now, be very careful with that wagon," called the Adjutant across the stream. "That has the Headquarters' things and papers. Don't let any water get into the bed. Cross at the shallowest place."

Si and Shorty found some poles, and prodded around as well as they were able in the crossing to find the shallowest place. If there was a part so shallow that the bed could be kept above water it was very narrow, and would require exceedingly skillful driving to keep on it. The whole regiment stood around, like a barnyard full of turkeys on a wet day, and looked on with an air of soppy melancholy.

"Groundhog," said Si, approaching that function ary, "was you watchin' carefully while me and Shorty was pickin' out the shallow places?"

"Naw," answered he, insolently; "wasn't watchin' nothin' but my mules. Got enough to do takin' keer o' them, without watchin' a couple o' fools projeckin' around with poles in a mud-hole. No sense in it, nohow. We never kin git acrost that 'ere tail-race. Only thing to do is to go back into camp till it quits rainin' and the water runs out."

"Groundhog," said Si resolutely, "you're not goin' back to camp; you're not goin' to wait till it stops rainin'. You're goin' right over now, as sure as my name's Si Klegg, or I'll break every bone in your karkiss."

"I can't go over," persisted Groundhog. "I ain't no fool. I know better what kin be done with an army wagon and six mules than any Injianny galoot that ever wore stripes or shoulder-straps. You simply can't git a wagon acrost that branch, and I ain't goin' to try."

"Groundhog," said Shorty, "you've bin itchin' to be killed for at least a year, that I know of probably as long as you've lived. You ought've had a stone tied to your neck and bin flung into the crick as soon's you was born. I've promised myself a good many times that I'd about murder you when ever I had time, but something's always made me neglect it. I'm in the killin' mood to-day, and I'd like to begin on you. I certainly will unless you drive that team straight acrost, and don't git a drop o' water in the bed o' the wagon."

"Come, hurry up, over there," shouted the Adjutant. "We can't wait all day. What's the matter with you? Get a move on you."

"All right, sir; we'll start at once, sir," said Si with ostentatious alacrity.

Shorty slapped his bayonet on, and brought the point very near Groundhog's abdomen. "I'll jab this thing clean through you in a holy minute, you pusillanimous basswood cullin'; you pestiferous pile o' pizen, rotten punk," he said savagely. "Git on your wheel-mule and gether up the lines."

Impelled by this, and the vigorous clutch of Si upon his collar, Groundhog climbed clumsily into the saddle and sullenly brandished his whip.

The mules made a start and went down the bank, but at the edge of the turbid torrent the leaders set their legs as stiffly as if they were the supports of a sawhorse. They did not make a sound, but somehow the other four understood, with electric suddenness, and their legs set like posts.

"Jest as I expected," said Groundhog, with a grunt of satisfaction; "they've balked for all day, an' you can't git 'em to move another foot if you killed 'em. They're as solid as if they'd growed there."

With an air of having encountered the irresistible, he started to get out of his saddle.

"Stay in there, confound you," said Shorty, prodding him with his bayonet. "Lick them mules. Make 'em start."

"'Bout as much use in lickin' a white-oak stump," said Groundhog, plying the whip viciously as a relief to his feelings. "You kin lick every inch of skin off 'em, and they won't move no more'n a gravestone."

"Start those mules along. Stop fooling,' said the Adjutant impatiently.

"We can't start 'em. They're balkin', sir," said Si desperately.

"Nonsense, nonsense," said the Adjutant. "Come ahead. Don't you see you're stopping the Second Brigade and all its teams?"

The men of the Second Brigade were already swarming across on the logs, while looking backward Si and Shorty could see the road filling up with teams. They ran down to the lead mules and caught them by the bridles and tried to pull them ahead. They might as well have pulled at the giant sycamore trees growing along the banks.

Everybody now began to take an interest in the affair. It is one of the delightful peculiarities of human nature that everybody knows better how to manage a balky horse or mule than the unfortunate man who is trying to.

"Stop whippin' them mules. You only make them wuss," shouted one man authoritatively. "Tie stones to their tails."

"Tie a string around their ears," shouted another. "That'll be sure to start 'em."

"Bite their ears, you fools. Don't you know nothin' about mules? Bite their ears, I tell you," shouted a man from Indianapolis.

"Throw some hot water on 'em."

"Tie their feet and tails together with a string."

"Build a fire under 'em."

"Turn the harness around the other way on 'em."

"Blindfold 'em."

Then the regimental humorists began to get in their work:

"Sing 'em the 'Battle Cry o' Freedom.'"

"They've struck for more grub. Promise 'em double rations till we get to Shelbyville."

"Stop swearin', there, you fellers. You've frozen 'em stiff with your bad language. Pray with 'em."

"Read them the Emancipation Proclamation."

"Call 'em pet names. You can do anything with kindness. Even a mule has, a heart."

"Bring up the band and serenade 'em."

Shorty was raging around the team, kicking and striking first at one mule and then at another, and swearing like a pirate, alternately at the team and then at the jeering crowds. Si was following suit to the best of his ability, but his pious education had left him out of sight of Shorty when it came to using language that the occasion seemed to justify. He had, however, yanked Groundhog out of the saddle and driven him up the bank, where he sat down and grinned at the confusion which had overtaken his enemies.

Setting a man at the head of each mule to coax and encourage him, and the rest of the company to pushing and prying on the wagon, Si had mounted the wheel-mule himself and put forth his mule-knowledge in one feverish effort, which was as futile as it was desperate, for the mules did not seem to change their positions for a rest, even, when the wagon was forced forward on them.

A very dapper young Aid, fresh from West Point, and with that high appreciation for himself that can only be acquired at the United States Military Academy, galloped up, sternly ordering everybody to make way for him, and,

"Present the compliments of the Major-General commanding the division, and what the h—'s the matter?"

"Capt. McGillicuddy, to whom the young gentle man had been referred as in charge, said quietly:

"You see: A mule-team has balked and stopped everything. We're doing our best to start them, but so far without success."

"So we all perceive," said the young man superciliously. "Why are you not down there directing them?"

"The men that I have down there thoroughly understand mules, and are doing their very utmost. They are having, as you can see, a superfluity of advice which is not helping them. I can best help by letting them alone to work it out their own way. They will do all that men can."

"I shall report the case to the General," said the Aid, with scarcely- concealed insolence. "Just like these confounded volunteers," he said as he turned away, taking no pains to keep the Captain from overhearing. "Never will be genuine soldiers in the world. Here, my men," continued he, riding over to the wagon, "stir yourselves lively, now, and start these wagons along. I want no more fooling, and won't have it. Start, now."

Shorty had the usual volunteer dislike to young West Pointers; like the rest of the men he cordially hated and ridiculed the young and airy staff officers, whether from West Point or not. It irritated him to see the youngster's treatment of his Captain. Saying snappy things at and about the Captain was a privilege jealously reserved to members of the company. To have anybody outside abuse the Captain was an insult to be resented. Above all, his American soul rose in wrath at the patronizing "my men." He would not have been at all offended at one of his own rough-and-ready officers jumping in and distributing curses on all hands, but "my men" was too much for him.

Without appearing to notice the presence of the Aid, Shorty walked up to the lead-mule, gave him a tremendous kick in the ribs, and sung out in a tone loud enough to be heard across the roaring branch:

"You pernickety pile o' poll-evil; you hee-hawin' graduate o' West Point; you pin-feathered, taller-faced, pop-eyed, lantern-jawed, loud- mouthed Second Lieutenant, you, won't you git up?"

The other boys began to catch on and grin. The Aid's face flushed, but Shorty continued his loud objurgations at the mule:

"You misbegotten pill o' perdition; you pompous, puddin'-headed staff officer; you miserable errand-boy for the General, puttin' on more airs than the General; you half-hatched officer, runnin' around yit with the shell on your head, and pretendin' to be cock-o'-the-walk, won't you git up?"

Even the Aid began to understand the drift of Shorty's remarks by this time, and Capt. McGillicuddy called out warningly:

"Shorty! Shorty!"'

Si looked in amazement at this new development of his partner's genius. The officers and men on the other side of the branch seemed to have forgotten for the moment the annoyance of the balked team in enjoyment of Shorty's outburst.

"Why under heaven they put such murrain cattle as you in the army I can't tell," he continued with another savage kick in the mule's side. "You only take up room from your betters. You don't fight, you only strut like a turkey-cock, and eat and he-haw. Now, will you git up?"

The Aid could not fail to understand now. He burst out in a torrent of rage: "You infernal scoundrel," he shouted, forcing his horse up to Shorty; "I'll have you shot for insubordination, for insulting and mutinous language to your superior officer."

"I wasn't sayin' nothin' to you," said Shorty, looking up with an air of surprise. "I hain't had nothin' to do with you. I was cussin' this other piebald pilgarlic from West Point; this other pig headed pickaninny o' the Regular Army; this Brevet-Second Lieutenant o' the Quartermaster's Department, and Aid on the staff o' Gen. Groundhog. You ain't my superior officer, nohow."

"Corporal," shouted the Aid to Si, "take this rascal up there on the bank and buck-and-gag him. Do it at once."

"I don't believe you have the right to give me orders, sir," said Si respectfully. "I am under Capt. McGillicuddy's orders."

"You are right, Corporal," said Capt. McGillicuddy, stepping forward. "Lieutenant, you cannot order one of my men to be punished. You have no right to command here. You are merely to convey the General's orders to those who are in command."

"I have the right to give orders. I represent the General, and speak in his name, and I order that man to be bucked-and-gagged," reiterated the Aid in a flame of anger. "I'll see that it is done. I shall not be so insulted before the whole army. It will destroy all discipline."

"Fortunately, the discipline of the army does not depend on the respect shown Second Lieutenants," Capt. McGillicuddy could not help saying. "If you have any complaint to make against one of my men, state it to me, their Captain, or to the Colonel of the regiment. We are the persons, not you, to deal with them."

The men around understood; nothing pleased them better than to see a bumptious young Aid sat down upon, and they were outspoken in their delight.

"I shall report you to the General, and have you court-martialed," said the Aid, shaking his fist at Capt. McGillicuddy. "I shall!"

"Mr. Farwell," said the Chief of Staff, riding up, "why haven't you reported to the General as to the trouble here? We've been waiting for you."

"Here," came the clear-cut tones of the Colonel across the branch; "no use of wasting any more time on those mules. They're there to stay. Unhitch them, fasten on a picket-rope, and we'll pull the wagon across from this side."

Everybody sprang to execute this order, but Si and Shorty's hands had not reached the traces when an idea seemed to shoot simultaneously through each of the six mules, and with one impulse they plunged ahead, directly into the swollen waters.

Si and Shorty sprang back toward their heads to guide them over the narrow crossing. But the mules seemed to take the right course by instinct, and landed the wagon safely on the other side, without a particle of water entering the bed. Everybody cheered, and Si and Shorty looked as if their minds had been relieved of a terrible load.

"Si," said Shorty, with a tinge of weariness in his tone, "they say it is about 18 miles from here to Shelbyville."

"Somethin' like that," answered Si.

"I think there are about three o' these cricks to every mile. Do you really suppose we'll be able to git there before our three years is up?"

"All depends on the mules," answered Si cheerily. "If this sudden spell o' goodness holds out we may get there before evening."

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III. THIRD DAY OF THE DELUGE TOILSOME PLODDING, AND "SHELBYVILLE ONLY 15 MILES AWAY."

IT SEEMS impossible, but the third day's rain was even worse than that of the two preceding. The drops seemed much larger, to follow each other faster, and with less interval between the downpours.

"Does it always rain this way in June down here?" Si asked a patriarch, who was sitting on his porch by the roadside in a split-bottomed rocking-chair, resting his bony hands on a cane, the head of which was a ram's horn, smoking a corn-cob pipe and watching the passing column with lack-luster eyes.

"Sah," said the sage, poking down the ashes in his pipe with his little finger, "I've done lived in the Duck River Valley ever sence Capting Jimmy Madison wuz elected President the fust time, and I never seed sich a wet spell as this afore. I reckon hit's all along o' the wah. We allers have a powerful sight o' rain in wah times. Hit rained powerful when Jinerul Jackson wuz foutin' the Injuns down at Hoss Shoe Bend, and the Summers durin' the Mexican war wuz mouty wet, but they didn't hold a candle to what we're havin' this yeah. Hit's the shootin' and bangin', I reckon, that jostles the clouds so's they can't hold in."

"How far is it to Shelbyville, Gran'pap?" asked Shorty.

'don't Call Me Your Gran'pap.' 37

"Don't call me yer gran-pap," piped out the old man in angry falsetto, and shaking his cane. "I won't stand hit. I won't stand everything. I've had enough ter stand from you Yankees already. You've stole my chickens an' robbed my smoke-house, an' run off my stock, an' I've done stood hit, but I won't stan' bein' called gran'pap by ye. I've some mouty mean grandsons, some that orter be in the penitentiary, but I hain't none mean enough t' be in the Yankee army."

"We didn't mean no offense, sir," said Si placatingly. "We really don't want you for a gran'father. We've got gran'fathers o' our own, and they're very nice old men, that we wouldn't trade off for anything ever raised in Tennessee. Have you anything to eat that you'll sell us? We'll pay you for it."

"No, I haint got nothin' nary mite," quavered the old man. "Your men an' our men have stole everything I have stock, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, meat an' meal everything, except my bare land an' my hope o' heaven. Thank God, none on ye kin steal them from me."

"Don't be too blamed sure about that, old feller," said Shorty. "Better hide 'em. The Maumee Muskrats are jest behind us. They're the worst thieves in the whole army. Don't let 'em know anything about your land or your hope o' salvation, or they'll have it in their haversacks before you kin wink."

"You haint told us yit how far it is to Shelbyville," said Si.

"Young man," said the sage oracularly, "that altogether depends. Sometimes Shelbyville is mouty fur off, an' sometimes she is right here. On bright, cl'ar days, when the roads is good, hit's only a few steps over thar jest two sees an' a holler."

"What's that?" said Si. "Two sees an' a holler? How far is that?"

"He means," explained Shorty, "that you go as far as you kin see from the highest hilltop to the next highest hill-top twice, and then it's only about as much farther as your voice will reach."

"Jest so," asserted the patriarch. "I kin saddle my ole nag arter dinner, rack over an' do some tradin', an' rack back agin in time for supper. But 'when we have sich sorry weather as this, Shelbyville seems on t' other side o' nowhar. You've got t' pull through the mud an' swim every branch and crick, an' you're mouty lucky if you git thar in a week."

"Why don't you build bridges over the creeks?" asked Si.

"Can't do hit when hit's rainin' an they're runnin' over thar banks."

"But why don't you do it when the weather's good?"

"What's the use? You kin git over all right then."

"Sir," said the Brigadier-General, riding up and addressing the old man, "where does the Shakerag road come into the Bellbuckle road?"

Instantly the old man felt that he was being asked to give "aid and information to the enemy," and his old eyes grew hard and his wrinkled face set. "I don't know, sah."

"Yes, you do," said the Brigadier-General impatiently, "and I want you to tell me."

"I don't know, sah," repeated the old man.

"Are there any works thrown up and any men out there on the Shakerag road?" asked the Brigadier.

"I don't know, sah."

"Did a large body of rebels go past your house yesterday, and which road did they take at the forks?" inquired the Brigadier.

"I don't know, sah."

The Brigadier-General was not in the best of humor, and he chafed visibly at the old man's answers.

"Does not Goober Creek run down there about a mile in that direction?" he again inquired, pointing with his field-glasses.

"I don't know, sah."

"How long have you lived here?" asked the Brigadier savagely.

"Nigh on to 55 year, sah."

"And you don't know where Goober Creek is, and which way it runs?" asked the Brigadier, losing all patience.

"No, sah," responded the imperturbable old man.

"Well," said the Brigadier-General grimly, "it is high time that you discovered that interesting stream. You might die without seeing it. Men (to Si and Shorty) take him down that road about a mile, where you will find a considerable body of water which I'm given to understand is called Goober Creek. You'll show it to him in all its magnificence and beauty. Geography is a very interesting study, old man, and it is not too late for you to begin getting acquainted with your own country."

The bitter humor of taking a man through the mud and pouring rain to see a creek that he had seen nearly every day of his life for a half-century was such that all the men were in a mood to appreciate. Si and Shorty entered into the affair with zest. They put a blanket on the old man's shoulders, to shelter him from the rain. Such a thing as an umbrella had never been in his house. Even the women would have looked upon it as a piece of luxurious effeminacy.

The old fellow grumbled, expostulated, and protested, but if Si and Shorty had had no other motive, orders direct from the Brigadier-General would have been executed at any cost. It was the first time that they had ever received orders from anybody higher than the Colonel, and the effect upon them was extraordinary.

"What in the everlastin' kingdom," grumbled he, "kin your niggah-lovin' Yankees expect t' gain by draggin' me out when hit's a-rainin' cats and dogs?"

"Don't know nothin' about it," answered Si, catching him by the shoulder to hurry him up. "'Tain't our business to know. We ain't paid for knowin' anything more than orders, and hardly enough for that. A man can't know much for $13 a month."

"'Twon't help yer niggeh-stealin' army a mite t' pi'nt out Goober Crick t' me. I ain't gwine t' tote ye over nor show ye the fords."

"Don't care nothin' about that neither," replied Shorty, as they pushed the old man along through the blinding 'rain. "Our orders is merely to show you Goober Crick. 'Tain't none o' our business what the General wants you to see it for. Mebbe he thinks it 'll improve your mind to gaze on the beauties o' nature. Mebbe he thinks you need exercise. Mebbe he thinks a shower-bath'd do you good."

The column had been checked by some difficulty in front, and as the boys conveyed their charge through the ranks of waiting men it seemed that everybody understood what they were doing, and volleys of sarcasm were flung at their prisoner. There were inquiries as to how he liked the study of geography as far as he had gotten; whether he would continue it in more favorable weather, and whether this primary lesson would be followed by others on the road to the mill, the path to the stable, and the way to the spring. If the old man had not already been as angry as he could be, his temper would have risen.

After a lot of toilsome plodding through the rain and mud which the passing wagons had made fathomless, they came to the top of a high hill, from which they could look down on a turbid sweep of yellow water, about half a mile away, which filled nearly the whole valley.

The reason of delay was at once apparent. The insignificant stream had suddenly become an almost impassable obstacle. Men were riding carefully across the submerged bottom land, prodding with poles, to pick out crossings. Others were digging down approaches to what seemed promising crossings, and making rude bridges across gullies and smaller streams that intervened.

It seemed that the fresh young Aid with whom the boys had the encounter the day before had in some mysterious way gained charge of the advance. He had graduated into the Engineer Corps from West Point, and here was an opportunity to display his immense knowledge to the glory of himself and the Engineers and the astonishment of those inferior persons who were merely officers of cavalry, infantry and artillery. Now he would show off the shrewd expedients and devices which have embellished the history of military engineering since the days of Hannibal and Julius Cesar.

That everybody might know who was doing all this, the Aid was riding back and forward, loudly commanding parties engaged in various efforts over more than a quarter of a mile of front. He had brought up the pontoon-train, and the pontoniers were having a hard time trying to advance the boats into the rushing waters. It was all that the men could do to hold them against the swift current. If a pole slipped or went down in a deep hole the men holding it would slip and probably fall overboard, the boat would whirl around and drift far out of its place, requiring great labor to bring it back again, and bringing down a torrent of curses from the young Lieutenant on the clumsiness of "the Stoughton bottles" who were pretending to be soldiers and pontoniers. He was feeling that every word of this kind showed off his superior knowledge to those around. Some of the men were standing waist-deep in the water, trying to fasten lines to trees, to hold in place the boats already stationed and being held there by arms straining at the poles. Everywhere those engaged in the work were tumbling down in the water or being carried off their feet by the current and rescued again with difficulty, to be hauled out on the bank, exhausted, soaked to the skin and covered with slimy mud.

For awhile this had seemed funny to the troops waiting to cross, and they had yelled and laughed themselves hoarse at the mishaps of their comrades. Now the fun had all evaporated and everybody was morose, with a strong tendency to outbreaks of profanity.

The old man surveyed the scene with evident satisfaction. "Yo' Yankees will git over thar about the middle o' July," he chuckled. "Now, I reckon that's Goober Crick, an' as I have done seed hit you'll let me go back home, I s'pose, won't ye?"

"That's probably Goober Crick, or at least Goober Crick is somewhere under that muddy freshet," acquiesced Shorty. "But I'm not at all sure that it's the crick. Looks more like a misplaced chunk out o' the Mizzoori River. I'm not sure, either, that your eyes kin see that distance. We'll have to walk you till we find a section of the crick somewhere that kin be recognized by the naked eyes. Come along, and step lively."

The old man groaned, but there was no hope for him from these relentless executants of orders. For a half hour more they plodded on. The mud grew deeper at every step, but the boys mercilessly forced the old man through the worst of it, that they might reach some point where they could actually see Goober Crick. He could not palm off on them any common old mud freshet for a creek that had a regular place on the map.

Finally they came near the pontoons, and saw one almost capsize, throwing everybody in it into the water, while another whirled madly away toward the center of the current, with but one man in, who was frantically trying to stop it and save himself.

"Yes, he'll stop it, much," said Shorty, looking after him. "If he gits ashore before he reaches the Mississippi I'll be surprised. Say, Si, it'll be easier lookin' for Goober Crick in a boat than wading through the mud. Let's git in one o' them boats."

This terrified the old man till he was ready to yield.

"I begin t' know the place," he admitted. "If we take this path through the woods t' the left hit'll bring us out whar yo' kin see Goober Crick for sartin, an' no mistake. Hit's allers above high-water thar."

The boys followed. A very short walk through a curtain of deep woods brought them on to much higher ground, where Goober Creek roared through a narrow channel it had cut in the rocks. As they stood on the banks, Si and Shorty's eyes met in a quick comprehension of the advantages of the place. They looked backward through the woods to see a depression in the hills, which promised a short and comparatively easy cut-off to the road in the rear, where the 200th Ind. lay.

"Yes, this is Goober Crick," said the old man, with an air of recalling an old acquaintance. "I'm sure of hit. Now, you'll let me go home, won't yer? I hain't got a dry thread left on me, an' I know I'll jest fairly die o' rheumatiz."

"Yes, you can go," said Shorty, who was filling his eyes with the lay of the ground, and the chances it offered of getting the 200th Ind. across ahead of the others and gaining the coveted head of the column. "I've no doubt you're awful wet, but mebbe you know more'n you did a couple of hours ago. Skip!"

The old man moved off with alacrity scarcely to be expected of him, and the boys saw that it was wisest to follow him, for he was taking a bee- line through the woods and brush for his home, and that they knew was near where they had left their regiment.

Soon Co. Q, crouching under the cedars and ponchos spread over fence corners, hovering around struggling fires, and sullenly making the best of a very poor prospect, was electrified by Si and Shorty appearing on as near a run as they could put up with their weight-soaked garments.

"Capt. McGillicuddy," gasped Si, "we've found a bully place to cross. Tell the Colonel quick. Let the boys git all the axes and shovels they kin, and come with us. We'll have a crossin' ready by the time the Colonel comes up with the regiment, and we kin git the advance agin."

Si had gained that enviable position in the regiment where he could always have plenty of followers to anything that he proposed. The sullen despondency passed into active alertness as soon as he began speaking, and before he was done some of them were rummaging around the wagons for axes and shovels. Two or three of these implements were found in the old man's yard.

"Go ahead," said the Captain. "I'll speak to the Colonel, and we'll follow you with the regiment. You can get the teams across, too?"

"Certain," said Si, as he handed his gun, cartridge-box, haversack, blanket-roll and overcoat to another boy to carry for him, shouldered his ax and started off at a run, the others following.

They came back to the spot whither the old man had led them. Si's experienced eye quickly selected two tall hickories, which could be felled directly across the stream and form the stringers for his bridge. The next instant the damp air was ringing with the strokes of eight as skillful axmen as there were in the army, Si leading on one tree and Shorty on the other. They could not keep up the feverish pace they had set for many minutes, but the instant their blows relaxed eight other men snatched the axes, and in a few minutes the trees toppled and fell just in the right position. Co. Q was now coming up, followed by the rest of the regiment, and they gave a cheer to echo the crash of the falling trees. Instantly hundreds of men and officers were at work clearing a road and completing the bridge. Some cut down other trees to furnish filling for the approaches, or to split into flooring for the bridge. Some dug down the bank and carried the clay to cover the brush and chunks. In an incredibly short time a bridge was completed, over which the regiment was marched, and the wagons pulled by the men, after the mules had been detached and walked over.

Every fresh success was announced by tremendous cheering, which carried information to the rest of the brigade that the 200th Ind. was doing something unusual. News as to what this was at last reached the ears of the Lieutenant of Engineers, who was continuing his struggle with the pontoons with a persistence worthy of better luck.

He rode up just in time to see Capt. McGillicuddy looking with elation at the passage of the last wagon.

"Why was I not informed as to what you were doing here, sir?" he asked angrily.

"Probably because we were too busy doing it to be talking about it. If you had known of it you would probably have tried to apply the 47th problem of Euclid to the case, and we wouldn't 've got ten over for a week. Eventually, sir, I expect you will find out that there are several things in the world that are not learned at West Point. Having accomplished all that we want with the bridge, I now have the pleasure of turning it over to the Engineer Department, and I wish that you may find it very useful," continued the Captain, as with a mocking smile and salute he followed the last of the regiment across the creek.

"Adjutant," said Si, saluting that official with great respect, "we've now got the advance agin, hain't we?"

"You're right we have, you bully boy with a glass eye," said the Adjutant, slapping him on the shoulder with a familiarity that would have given the young Engineer Lieutenant a spasm and caused a strong report on the discipline of the 200th Ind. "And you can just bet we'll keep it, too. You ought to see the Colonel's eye. We'll lead the procession into Shelbyville, which is only 15 miles away."

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IV. THE FOURTH DAY OF THE TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN "SHELBYVILLE ONLY 10 MILES AWAY."

AND it rained the fourth day rained as if there had been months of drouth, during which it had been saving up water and gathering its energies for an astonishing, overwhelming, make-up-for-lost-time effort.

"Great goodness," said Si, as he and Shorty were again wringing their blankets out to lighten the load they would start with; "seems to me they're tryin' to move Lake Superior down here, and dumping the water by train-loads."

"Old Rosey ought to set us to buildin' arks," grumbled Shorty. "We'll need 'em as bad as Noah did."

There was an alleviation to the weather and mud in the good news that came from all parts of the long front of 75 miles, on which the 60,000 men of the Army of the Cumberland were pressing forward against their enemies in spite of the apparent league of the same with the powers of the air against them. Away off on the extreme right Gen. Mitchel's cavalry had driven the enemy from Triune, Eagleville, Rover, and Unionville; Gordon Granger's and Crittenden's infantry were sweeping forward through Salem, Christiana, and Bradyville; grand old Pap Thomas, in his usual place in the center, had swept forward with his accustomed exhibition of well-ordered, calmly-moving, resistless power, and pushed the enemy out of his frowning strongholds at Hoover's Gap; McCook, whose advance had that splendid leader, John F. Miller, had struck success fully at Liberty Gap, and far to our left the dash ing Wilder had led his "Lightning Brigade" against the enemy's right and turned it. The higher officers were highly elated at the success of Gen. Rosecrans's brilliant strategy in forcing the very formidable outer line of the enemy without a repulse any where. Their keen satisfaction was communicated to the rank and file, and aroused an enthusiasm that was superior to the frightful weather. Every body was eager to push forward and bring Bragg to decisive battle, no matter how strong his laboriously-constructed works were.

"Old Rosey may be a little slow to start," Shorty held forth oracularly to the group crouching over the fire, "but when he does start, great Scott, but he's a goer. I'll put every cent I may have for the next 10 years on him, even though he's handicapped by a Noah's deluge for 40 days and 40 nights. And when it comes to playin' big checkers, with a whole State for a board, and brigades and divisions for men, he kin skunk old Bragg every time, without half tryin'. He's busted his front row all to pieces, and is now goin' for his king-row. We'll have Bragg before Grant gits Pemberton, and then switch around, take Lee in the rear, capture Richmond, end the war, and march up Pennsylvania Avenue before Old Abe, with the scalps o' the whole Southern Confederacy hangin' at our belts."

"Wish to Heaven," sighed Si, "Old Rosey'd thought to bring along a lot of Ohio River coal scows and Wabash canal-boats to make our campaign in. What fun it'd be jest to float down to Shelbyville and fight those fellers with 100 rough-and-ready gunboats. Then, I'd like awfully to know once more what it feels like to have dry feet. Seems to me my feet are swelling out like the bottom of a swamp-oak."

"Hope not, Si," said Shorty. "If they git any bigger there won't be room enough for anybody else on the same road, and you'll have to march in the rear o' the regiment. Tires me nearly to death now to walk around 'em."

"There goes the bugle. Fall in, Co. Q," shouted the Orderly-Sergeant.

As the 200th Ind. had the advance, and could leave the bothersome problems of getting the wagons across the creeks to the unlucky regiment in the rear, the men stepped off blithely through the swishing showers, eager to find the enemy and emulate the achievements on previous days by their comrades on other parts of the line.

Being as wet as they could be, they did not waste any time about crossing streams. The field officers spread out and rode squarely at the most promising crossings in sight. The men watched their progress, and took the best they found. If the water did not get above the middle of the sides of the Colonel's medium-sized horse, they took off their haversacks and unbuckled their cartridge-boxes, and plunged in after him, the shorter men pairing off with the taller men, and clinging to them.

So eager was their advance that by the time they halted at noon for a rest and a cup of coffee, they were miles ahead of the rest of the brigade, and beginning to look forward to catching glimpses of Shelbyville.

They had encountered no opposition except long-taw shots from rebel cavalry watching them from the opposite sides of the yellow floods, and who would scurry away as soon as they began to cross.

The young Aid again appeared upon the scene.

"Colonel," he said, saluting, "the General presents his compliments, and directs that you advance to that next creek, and halt there for the night and observe it."

"What did that young man remark?" said Shorty in an undertone; "that we wuz to advance to that crick and observe it? What in the thunder have we bin doin' for the past four days but observe cricks, an' cross the nasty, wet things?"

"He means, Shorty," said Capt. McGillicuddy, "that we are to go as near as we can to the bank, and watch, that the rebels do not come across, and wait there until the rest of the division get in supporting distance."

"I guessed that was what his West Point lingo meant, if he has brains enough to mean anything. Why didn't he say in plain United States: 'Git down to the edge o' that there crick, watch for a chance to jump the rebels, and keep your eye peeled that the rebels don't jump you?' That'd be plain Methodist-Episcopal, that everybody could under stand.".

"I'll see that you are appointed Professor of Military Language and Orders at West Point when you are discharged," said the Captain, laughing.

The regiment advanced to the edge of the swollen flood and made themselves as comfortable as possible under shelters improvised from rails, cedar boughs, pieces of driftwood, etc. A considerable force of rebels appeared on the opposite bank, whose business seemed to be to "observe" the Yankees.

The restless Si and Shorty started out on a private reconnoissance. They discovered that the shore opposite the left of the regiment was really an island, separated by some hundreds of yards of rushing water from them, but the main current ran on the other side of the island.

"We can't observe the crick through that mass o' willers and cottonwoods," said Shorty. "That's certain. No tellin' what devilment the rebels are up to on the bank over there. They may be gittin' up a flank movement over there, with pontoons and flatboats, to bust the whole army wide open."

"That's so," assented Si. "The orders are to observe this crick, and we can't do it if we can't see the other bank. We ought to git over to that island."

They went back and reported to Capt. McGillicuddy, and told him what they thought. He at once agreed with them, and sanctioned their proposal to go over to the island, if they could find means of crossing.

After a diligent search they came across an old canoe hollowed out of a tulip-tree log. It was a cranky affair, and likely to turn over if their hair was not parted exactly in the middle; but both of the boys were used to canoe management, and they decided to risk the thing.

It was ticklish business crossing the current, but they succeeded in reaching the island, which extended a foot or more above the level of the flood, and was covered with a thicket of willows and cottonwoods about the size of hoe-handles. They pushed their way through these and came in sight of the opposite banks. There was apparently some thing important going on over there. Quite a number of rebels could be seen moving about through the rain and mud, there was great deal of chopping going on, several flatboats, canoes and rafts were lying at the bank, wagons were passing, and the boys thought they could make out a cannon or two.

"I can't make out what in the world they're up to," said Si. "But I'm certain the Colonel ought to know it. Suppose you take the canoe, Shorty, and paddle over and report, and I'll stay here and watch."

"All right," answered Shorty, starting back for the canoe.

He reported to Capt. McGillicuddy, who took him up to the Colonel.

"It don't seem possible that they can be doing anything to threaten us," said the Colonel; "though they may know of some practicable crossing higher up the stream, which will let them in on our flank. Still, they ought to be watched. I'll inform the General at once. You had better station a picket on the island, Captain, if you can do so safely."

"Me and my pardner 'll look out for them, Colonel, if you think necessary," said Shorty, proud to be of service under the Colonel's direction.

"Very good," said the Colonel briefly. "I'll entrust the lookout to you boys. Let me know at once if anything important develops."

The young Aid had been standing nigh during this conversation.

"Your men, Colonel," he said patronizingly, "are excellent soldiers, in their way, but they lack the intelligence necessary to comprehend the movements of the enemy on the opposite bank. I think I shall go over there myself, take a personal observation, and determine precisely what the meaning of the movements may be."

"As you like," said the Colonel stiffly. "As for myself, I don't think it is necessary for me to go. I'd trust those boys' eyes as quick as I would my own. They are as good soldiers as ever breathed; they are as keen as a brier, with not a particle of nonsense about them. They are as truthful as the day. When they tell me anything that they have seen with their own eyes I can trust it as absolutely as if I had seen it myself; and their judgment can not be beat."

"No enlisted man can possibly see anything so well as an officer who has been educated," said the Aid.

"That is a matter of opinion," said the Colonel dryly.

"Anyway, I'm going over to see for myself," said the Aid. And he called after Shorty:

"Here, my man, I'm going along with you."

Shorty muttered some very warm words under his breath, but discipline asserted itself, and he answered respectfully:

"Very good, sir."

He halted until the Aid came alongside, and then started to walk beside him as he would have done with one of his own officers when out alone with him.

"Fall two paces behind," commanded the Aid sternly

Shorty said to himself some very hotly-disparaging things about pretentious young snips of Regular officers. They reached the canoe, and the Lieutenant calmly seated himself in the stern. This was another aggravation. If Shorty had gone out with one of his own officers, even the Colonel, he would have shown a deep interest in everything and wanted to do his share toward getting the canoe safely over. This young fellow calmly seated himself, and threw all the responsibility and work on Shorty.

"Now, you set right in the center, there," said Shorty, as he picked up the paddle and loosened the rope, "and keep mighty still."

"My man," said the Lieutenant, frowning, "when I want your advice I'll ask it. It is for me to give you directions, not you me. You paddle out, now, and head straight for that island. Paddle briskly, and get me over there as quick as possible."

Shorty was tempted to tip the canoe over then and there, but he restrained himself, and bent his strong arms to the hard task of propelling the canoe across the strong current, avoiding the driftwood, maintaining his balance, and keeping the bow pointed toward the place where he wanted to land.

The Lieutenant had sense enough to sit very still, and as he naturally had been drilled into bolt-up-rightness, Shorty had little trouble with him until they were nearing the shore. Then the canoe ran into a swirl which threw its bow around. Forgetting his dignified pose, the Lieutenant made a grab for some overhanging willows.

"Let them alone, blast you; I'll bring her around all right," Shorty started to yell, but too late. Before the words were out of his mouth the cranky canoe went over. Shorty with the quickness of a cat jumped clear, caught some branches with one hand, and made a grab for the canoe with the other. But he saw the Lieutenant go down head foremost, with fancy boots disappearing last. He let the canoe go, to make a grab for the boots. He missed them, but presently the Lieutenant's head appeared, and he gasped and sputtered:

"Save me, my good man. I can't swim a stroke."

Shorty plunged out, succeeded in catching the Lieutenant by the collar, and after a vicious struggle with the current, grabbed with his right hand a pole that Si thrust out to him, while with his left he dragged the Lieutenant ashore, "wetter'n a blamed drowned West Point muskrat," as he after ward expressed it.

"My good man, you saved my life, and I thank you for it," said the Lieutenant when he recovered his breath. "I shall mention you in my report."

"If you don't stop calling me your 'good man' I'll chuck you into the drink again, you wasp-waisted, stiff-backed, half-baked West Point brevet Second Lieutenant," said Shorty wrathfully. "If you'd had the sense of a six-months'-old goslin' you'd 'a' set still, as I told you, and let me manage that canoe. But you never kin learn a West Pointer nothin'. He'd try to give God Almighty points if he got a chance. Now we've lost our canoe, and we're in a devil of a fix. I feel like throwin' you back in the crick."

"Take care, my good" and then the Lieutenant caught the glare of Shorty's eye. "Take care, sir. You're on the verge of mutiny. I may have you court-martialed and shot, if you're not careful."

"Court-martial and be blamed," said Si, who was as angry as Shorty. "You've lost our canoe, and we may be drowned before we can git off this island. It's got so dark they can't see us from the shore, the water's steadily rising, these trees are too small to climb, and the Lord knows how we're goin' to git off."

"Corporal, I'll see that you're reduced to the ranks for disrespect to me. I had intended to recommend this man for promotion on account of his great service to the army in saving my life. Now I shall see that you are both punished for insubordination."

"Insubordination be damned, and you with it," said Shorty. "You'd better be thinking how we're to git off this island. The water's bin raisin' about a foot a minute. I've bin watchin' while we wuz talkin'."

The Lieutenant stood, dazed, while the boys were canvassing plans for saving themselves.

"I'll tell you, Shorty," said Si suddenly. "Le's ketch one o' them big saw-logs that's comin' down, straddle it, and let it carry us somewhere. It may take us into our own lines. Anything's better than drowndin'. Here comes one in the eddy now."

Shorty caught the log with a long pole, and dexterously steered it up close to the shore in comparatively still water. Si threw a grapevine over it and held it.

"Now, all git on," said Shorty. "Be careful not to push it away."

"Let me get on ahead," said the Lieutenant, still mindful of his rank, "and you two get on behind, the Corporal next to me."

"Not much, Mary Ann," jeered Shorty. "We want a man of sense ahead, to steer. I'll git on first, then you, and then Si, to bring up the rear and manage the hind end of the log."

The Lieutenant had to comply. They all got safely on, and Shorty pushed off, saying:

"Here, sit straight, both of you. Here goes mebbe for New Orleans, mebbe for Libby Prison, mebbe for the camp of the 200th Ind.

"We're out on the ocean sailin'."

Here Goes, Mebbe to Libbey Prison. 55

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V. AFLOAT ON A LOG SI, SHORTY AND THE WEST-POINTER HAVE AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY

THE log swept out into the yellow swirl, bobbing up and down in the turbulent current.

"Bobs like a buckin' broncho," said Shorty. "Make you seasick, Si?"

"Not yet," answered his partner. "I ain't so much afraid o' that as I am that some big alligator-gar 'll come along and take his dinner off my leg."

"Bah," said Shorty, contemptuously; "no alligator-gar is goin' to come up into this mud-freshet. He'd ruther hunt dogs and nigger-babies further down the river. Likes 'em better. He ain't goin' to gnaw at them old Wabash sycamore legs o' yourn when he kin git a bite at them fat shoats we saw sailin' down stream awhile ago."

"The belief in alligator-gar is a vulgar and absurd superstition," said the Lieutenant, breaking silence for the first time. "There, isn't anywhere in fresh water a fish capable of eating anything bigger than a bull-frog."

"Hullo; did West Point learn you that?" said Shorty. "You know just about as much about it as you do about gittin' over cricks an' paddlin' a canoe. Have you ever bin interduced to a Mississippi catfish? Have you ever seen an alligator-gar at home in the Lower Mississippi? Naw! You don't know no more about them than a baby does about a catamount. I have heard tell of an alligator-gar that was longer'n a fence-rail, and sort of king of a little bayou down in the Teche country. He got mad because they run a little stern-wheel steamboat up into his alley to git their cotton off, an' he made up his mind to stop it. He'd circle 'round the boat to git a good headway and pick out his man. Then he'd take a run- and-jump, leap clean across the boat, knock off the man he'd picked out, an' tow him off under a log an' eat him. He intended to take the Captain fust, but his appetite got the better of him. He saw a big, fat, juicy buck nigger of a deck-hand, an' couldn't stand the temptation. He fetched him easy. Next he took a nice, tender little cabin-boy. Then he fetched the big old Mate, but found him so full o' terbacker, whisky and bad language that he couldn't eat him nohow, an' turned him over to the mudturtles, what'll eat anything. The Captain then got scared an' quit. He didn't care a hat for the Mate, for he was glad to git rid of him; but he liked the cabin-boy an' he had to pay the owner o' the nigger $1,200 for him, an' that made runnin' up the Teche onprofitable."

"Oh, Shorty," Si gasped. He thought he was acquainted with his partner's brilliant talents for romance, but this was a meteoric flight that he had not expected.

"But that wasn't nothin'," Shorty continued, "to a he catfish that a man told me about down near Helena, Ark. He used to swim around in a little chute near a house-cabin in which lived a man with a mighty good-lookin' young wife. The man was awful jealous of his woman, an' used to beat her. The ole he catfish had a fine eye for purty women, and used to cavort around near the cabin whenever his business would permit. The woman noticed him, and it tickled him greatly. She'd throw him hunks o' bread, chunks o' cold meat, and so on. The man'd come out and slap her, and fling clubs and knots at him. One day the man put his wife in a basswood canoe, and started to take her across the river. He hadn't got a rod from the shore when the old he catfish ups and bites the canoe in two, then nips the man's hand so's he didn't git over it for months, and then puts his nose under the woman's arm, and helps her ashore as polite as you please."

"Shorty," gasped Si, "if you tell any more such stories as that this log'll certainly sink. See it how it wobbles now."

"I consider such stuff very discourteous to your officer," said the Lieutenant stiffly. "I shall make a note of it for consideration at some future time."

"Halt! Who goes thar?" rang out sharply from the bank.

"Hush; don't breathe," said Shorty. They were in an eddy, which was sweeping them close to the rebel bank.

"Who air yo' haltin'?" said a second voice.

"I see some men in a canoe out thar. I heared their voices fust," said the first voice.

"Whar' yo see any men in a canoe?" asked the second incredulously.

"Right over thar. You kin see 'em. They're comin' right this-a-way. I'm a gwine t' halt 'em agin an' then shoot."

"Stuff," said the other. "You're allers seein' shadders an' ghostses. That 'er's only an ole tree with three limbs stickin' up. Don't yo' shoot an' skeer the whole camp. They'll have the grand laugh on yo', an' mebbe buck-an'-gag yo'."

"'Tain't stuff," persisted the other. "Thar never wuz a tree that ever growed that had three as big limbs as that all on one side. You're moon blind."

"A man mout well be rain blind in sich a storm as this, but I tell yo' that's nothin' but an ole sycamore drift log. If yo' shoot the boys'll never git tired o' damnin' yo', an' jest as likely as not the ossifers'll make yo' tote a rail through the mud termorrer."

The boys were so near that every word could be distinctly heard, and they were floating nearer every moment.

The suspense was thrilling. If the man fired at that distance he could not help hitting one of them and discovering the others. They scarcely breathed, and certainly did not move a muscle, as the log floated steadily in-shore in the comparatively stiller waters of the eddy. The rain was coming down persistently yet, but with a sullen quietness, so that the silence was not broken by the splashing of the drops.

A water-moccasin deadliest of snakes crawled up onto the log and coiled himself in front of Si, with that indifference to companionship which seems to possess all animals in flood-times. Si shuddered as he saw it, but did not dare make a motion against it.

The dialog on the bank continued.

"Thar, you kin see thar air men in a canoe," said the first voice.

"I can't see nothin' o' the kind," replied the other.

"If hit ain't a log with three dead limbs, hit's a piece o' barn-timber with the j'ists a-stickin' up."

"I don't believe hit nary mite. Hit's men, an' I'm a-gwine t' shoot."

"No, yo' hain't gwine t' make a durned fool o' yourself. Wait a minute. Hit's a-comin' nigher, an' soon you kin hit it with a rock. I'll jest do hit t' show yo how skeery yo' air. Le'me look around an' find a good rock t' throw. If I kin find jest the right kind I kin hit a yallerhammer at that distance."

This prospect was hardly more reassuring than that of being fired at, but there was nothing to do but to take whatever might come. To make it more aggravating, the current had slowed down, until the motion of their log was very languid. They were about 100 feet from the shore when they heard the second voice say:

"Heah, I've got jest the right kind o' a dornick. Now jest keep yer eye peeled an' fixed on that center limb, an' yo'll hear it chunk when I plunk hit an' show hit's nothin' but a stick o' wood."

Si thought he saw the Lieutenant crouch a little, but was not sure.

The stone came whistling through the air, struck the top of the Lieutenant's cap and knocked it off into the water.

"Thar," said the second voice triumphantly; "yo' see hit ain't no men. Jest as I done tole yo'. I knocked the bark offen the end o' one o' the sticks."

The log moved slowly on, and presently catching in a stronger current, swept out into the stream again. It seemed so like deliverance, that Si made a quick blow and knocked the snake off into the water, and Shorty could not help shouting triumphantly:

"Good-by, Johnnies! Sorry we can't stay with you longer. Got other engagements down the crick. Ta-ta! See you later."

The chagrined sentry fired an angry shot, but they were already behind a clump of willows.

"Lootenant," said Shorty, "you put on a whole lot of unnecessary frills, but you've got good stuff in you after all. You went through that little affair like a man. I'll back you after this."

"When I desire your opinion, sir, as to my conduct," replied the Lieutenant, "I shall ask you for it. Until then keep it to yourself. It is for me to speak of your conduct, not you of mine."

But again they "had hollered before they were out o' the woods," as Shorty afterward expressed it. The gunfire and the sound of their voices so near shore had stirred up the rebels. A canoe with three men in it had pushed out, and, struggling with the current, had made its way toward them, guided by their own voices. The top of a floating tree had hidden it from their sight until it suddenly came around the mass of leafage, and a man standing up in the bow leveling a revolver at them ordered instant surrender. The other two men were sitting in the middle and stern with paddles, and having all they could do to maintain the course of the canoe.

Si and Shorty were so startled that for an instant they made no response to the demand. The Lieutenant was the first to speak:

"Are you a commissioned officer?" he inquired.

"No," was the answer.

"Then I refuse to surrender. I'll surrender to no one inferior to me in rank."

"Sorry we'uns can't obleege yo', nohow," said the man with the revolver, in a sneer; "but we'uns'll have t' be good enough commissioned ossifers for yo' jist now, an' yo'll have t' done hold up yo'uns hands. We'uns hain't no time t' send ashore for a Lootenant."

The other two chuckled as they struggled with the current, and forced the canoe up close to the log. Shorty made a motion as if throwing up his hands, and called out in a submissive way:

"Here, le'me git hold o' the bow, and I kin help you. It's awful hard paddlin' in this current."

Without thinking the men threw the bow in so close that Shorty could clutch it with his long hand. The grab shook the ticklish craft, so that the man with the revolver could scarcely keep his feet.

"Heah," he yelled at the other two. "Keep the dugout stiddy. What air yo'uns doin'? Hold her off, I tell yo'uns."

Then to the Lieutenant:

"Heah, yo'uns surrender to wonst, or I'll blow yo' heads offen yo'uns."

The Lieutenant started a further remonstrance, but Shorty had in the meantime got the other hand on the canoe, and he gave it such a wrench that the man with the pistol lost his footing and fell across the log, where he was grabbed by Shorty and his pistol-hand secured. The stern of the canoe had swung around until Si had been able to catch it with one hand, while with the other he grabbed the man in the stern, who, seeing the sudden assumption of hostilities, had raised his paddle to strike.

Si and Shorty had somewhat the advantage in position. By holding on to the log with their legs they had a comparatively firm, base, while the canoe was a very ticklish foundation for a fight.

The middle man also raised his paddle to strike, but the Lieutenant caught it and tried to wrest it away. This held the canoe and the log close together while Si and Shorty were struggling. Si saw this, and letting go, devoted both hands to this man, whom he pulled over into the water about the same time that Shorty possessed himself of the other man's pistol and dragged him out of the canoe.

"Hold fast in the center there, Lieutenant," he called out, as he dropped the pistol into his bosom and took in the situation with a quick glance. "You two Johnnies hold on to the log like grim death to a dead nigger, and you won't drown."

He carefully worked himself from the log into the canoe, and then Si did the same. They had come to a part where the water spread out in a broad and tolerably calm lake over the valley, but there was a gorge at the further end through which it was rushing with a roar. Log and canoe were drifting in that direction, and while the changes were being made the canoe drifted away from the log.

"Hold on, men," shouted the Lieutenant; "you are certainly not going to abandon your officer?"

"Certainly not," said Shorty. "How could you imagine such a thing? But just how to trade you off for this rebel passenger presents difficulties. If we try to throw him overboard we shall certainly tip the canoe over. And I'm afraid he's not the man to give up peaceably a dry seat in the canoe for your berth on the log."

"I order you to come back here at once and take me in that boat," said the Lieutenant imperatively.

"We are comin' back all right," said Shorty; "but we're not goin' to let you tip this canoe over for 40 Second Lieutenants. We'll git you out o' the scrape somehow. Don't fret."

"Hello, thar! Help! Help!" came across the waters in agonized tones, which at the same time had some thing familiar in them.

"Hello, yourself!" responded Shorty, making out, a little distance away, a "jo-boat," that is, a rude, clumsy square-bottomed, square-ended sort of a skiff in which was one man. "What's wanted?"

"I'm out here adrift without no oars," came in the now-distinctly recognizable voice of Jeff Hackberry. "Won't yo' please tow me ashore?"

"Le's go out there and git him," said Shorty to Si. "We kin put all these fellers in that jo-boat and save 'em."

A few strokes of their paddles brought them alongside.

"How in the world did you come here, Hackberry," asked Shorty.

"O, that ole woman that I wanted so bad that I couldn't rest till I got her wuz red-hot t' git rid o' me," whined Hackberry. "She tried half-a- dozen ways puttin' wild parsnip in my likker, giving me pokeberry bitters, and so on, but nothin' fetched me. Finally she deviled me to carry her acrost the crick to the Confederit lines. I found this ole jo- boat at last, an' we got in. Suddenly, quick as lightning she picked up the oars, an' give the boat a kick which sent hit away out into the current. I floated away, yellin' at her, an' she standin' on the bank grinnin' at me and cussin'. I've been havin' the awfulest day floatin' down the freshet, expectin' every minute t' be drowned, an' both sides pluggin' away at me whenever they ketched sight o' me. I wuz willin' t' surrender t' either one that'd save me from being drownded, but none of 'em seemed t' care a durn about my drowndin'; they only wanted t' plug me."

"Please save me, Mister," begged Jeff, "an' I'll do anything under the shinin' sun for yo'; I'll jine the Yankee army; I'll lead you' to whar thar's nests o' the pizenest bushwhackers. I'll do anything yo' kin ax me. Only save me from being drownded. Right down thar's the big falls, an' if I go over them, nothin' kin same me from drowndin'." And he began a doleful blubbering.

"On general principles, I think that'd be the best thing that could happen," remarked Shorty. "But I haven't time to discuss that now. Will you do just what we want, if we save your life?"

"Yes; yes," responded he eagerly.

"Well, if you don't, at the very minute I tell you, I'll plug you for certain with this," said Shorty, showing the revolver. "Mind, I'll not speak twice. I'll give you no warnin'. You do what I tell you on the jump, or I'll be worse to you than Mrs. Bolster. First place, take this man in with you. And you (to the rebel in the canoe) mind how you git into that boat. Don't you dare, on your life, kick the canoe over as you crawl out. If I find it rocks the least bit as you leave I'll bust your cocoanut as the last act of my military career. Now crawl out."

The rebel crawled over the gunwale into the boat as cautiously as if there were torpedoes under him.

"Now," said Shorty, with a sigh of relief, as the man was at last out of the canoe, "we'll paddle around here and pick up some pieces of boards for you to use as oars. Then you bring the boat over to that log."

This was done, and the Lieutenant and the two rebels clinging to the log were transferred to the jo-boat. The moment the Lieutenant felt himself in the comparative security of the jo-boat his desire for command asserted itself.

"Now, men," said he, authoritatively, "pull away for the other side, pointing up stream. That glow over there is our campfires. Make for it."

"All right, Lootenant," said Shorty. "You command that boat. You've got your revolver with you, and kin make 'em mind. We'll pick up some more boards, so as to have oars for all o' 'em. They'd better use 'em lively, for it ain't a great ways t' the suck. If you git into that you'll go to Davy Jones's as sure as the Lord made little apples. Paddle, now, if you value your lives. Me and Si are goin' back to look for that galoot that shot at us. We want to make a present of him to our Colonel, who's after information from the other side. We want his gun and another one to make up for the two that we had to leave on the island. We'll join you before you git acrost."

The Lieutenant lifted up his voice in remonstrance against the desperate undertaking, but Si and Shorty paddled swiftly away, leaving him and his squad to struggle over the muddy lake in their clumsy bateau.

Though the boys were sadly worn by the day's exciting adventures, yet they were animated by the hope of doing something that would signally retrieve their earlier misfortunes. Both were adepts at canoe navigation, the canoe was light and easily managed with but two in it, and they had gotten the lay of the shore so well in mind that they felt sure that they could slip around and come in on the man who had fired upon them. The drizzle of the rain helped curtain them; they pushed the canoe through the top of a paw-paw thicket that rose but a little way above the flood, Shorty sprang out, and in a few steps came up behind the two pickets, who were crouching over a little fire they had built behind the cover of some dense weeds.

"Was this the post that fired on men in a canoe a little while ago?" he asked, as if a rebel officer out on a tour of investigation.

"Yes," the men stammered, as soon as they could recover from the startle of his sudden appearance.

"Which man fired?" asked Shorty.

"Me," answered one.

"Well, I want you and both your guns," said Shorty, thrusting his revolver against the man's face. "Pick up them guns and go right ahead there."

The man meekly did as bid, and in a few minutes was landed into the canoe, into which Shorty jumped and pushed off. When nearly across they came upon the jo-boat, with the Lieutenant standing erect with drawn revolver, while the men were laboring hard to propel it to shore. The boys fastened its painter to the stern of the canoe and helped by towing.

They headed for a large fire burning brightly on the bank, indicating that it was the headquarters of the pickets. In response to the sharp challenge, the Lieutenant responded:

"Friends, without the countersign."

Quite a number of officers and men thronged to the water's edge to see what could be coming from that unexpected quarter. The Lieutenant ordered the boys to fall to the rear with their canoe, that he might be the first to land, and as his bateau labored close to the shore he recognized the Colonel in command of the picket line, and said in a loud voice:

"Sir, I have the honor to report that I have been across the creek reconnoitering the enemy's lines. I have with me five prisoners four soldiers and one guerrilla."

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