IX. SHORTY IN TROUBLE HAS AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE PROVOST-MARSHAL
"I AINT got no pass," said Shorty, in response to the demand of the Provost-Guard. "Bin home on sick-furlough. Goin' back to the front now. Left my papers at home. Forgot 'em."
"Heard all about lost and missing papers before," said the Sergeant drily. "Fall in there, under guard." And he motioned Shorty to join the gang of stragglers and runaways which had already been gathered up.
"Look here. Sergeant," remonstrated Shorty, "I don't belong in that pack o' shell-fever invalids, and I won't fall in with 'em. There's no yaller or cotton in me. I'm straight goods, all wool, and indigodyed. I've bin promoted Corpril in my company for good conduct at Chickamauga. I'm goin' back to my regiment o' my own accord, before my time's up, and I propose to go my own way. I won't go under guard."
"You'll have to, if you can't show a pass," said the Sergeant decisively. "If you're a soldier you know what orders are. Our orders are to arrest every man that can't show a pass, and bring him up to Provost Headquarters. Fall in there without any more words."
"I tell you I'm not goin' back to the regiment under guard," said Shorty resolutely. "I've no business to go back at all, now. My furlough ain't up for two weeks more. I'm goin' back now of my own free will, and in my own way. Go along with your old guard, and pick up them deadbeats and sneaks, that don't want to go back at all. You'll have plenty o' work with them, without pesterin' me."
"And I tell you you must go," said the Sergeant, irritably, and turning away, as if to end the discussion. "Williams, you and Young bring him along."
"I'll not go a step under guard, and you can't make me," answered Shorty furiously, snatching up the heavy poker from the stove. "You lunkheaded, feather-bed soldiers jest keep your distance, if you know what's good for you. I didn't come back here from the front to be monkeyed with by a passel o' fellers that wear white gloves and dresscoats, and eat soft bread. Go off, and 'tend your own bizniss, and I'll 'tend to mine."
The Sergeant turned back and looked at him attentively.
"See here," he said, after a moment's pause.
"Don't you belong to the 200th Ind.?"
"You bet I do. Best regiment in the Army o' the Cumberland."
"You're the feller they call Shorty, of Co. Q?"
Shorty nodded assent.
"I thought I'd seen you somewhere, the moment I laid eyes on you," said the Sergeant in a friendly tone. "But I couldn't place you. You've changed a good deal. You're thinner'n a fishing-rod."
"Never had no meat to spare," acquiesced Shorty, "but I'm an Alderman now to what I was six weeks ago. Got a welt on my head at Chickamaugy, and then the camp fever at Chattanoogy, which run me down till I could've crawled through a greased flute."
"Well, I'm Jim Elkins. Used to belong to Co. A," replied the Sergeant. "I recollect your stealing the caboose door down there at Murfreesboro. Say, that was great. How that conductor ripped and swore when he found his door was gone. I got an ax from you. You never knew who took it, did you? Well, it was me. I wanted the ax, but I wanted still more to show you that there was somebody in the camp just as slick on the forage as you were. But I got paid for it. The blamed old ax glanced one day, while I was chopping, and whacked me on the knee."
"A thief always gits fetched up with," said Shorty, in a tone of profound moralizing. "But since it had to go I'm glad one o' our own boys got it. I snatched another and a better one that night from the Ohio boys. I'm awful sorry you got hurt. Was it bad?"
"Yes. The doctors thought I'd lose my leg, and discharged me. But I got well, and as soon as they'd take me I re-enlisted. Wish I was back in the old regiment, though. Say, you'll have to go to Headquarters with me, because that's orders, but you just walk alongside o' me. I want to talk to you about the boys."
As they walked along, the Sergeant found an opportunity to say in low tone, so that the rest could not hear:
"Old Billings, who used to be Lieutenant-Colonel, is Provost-Marshal. He's Lieutenant-Colonel of our regiment. He'll be likely to give you a great song and dance, especially if he finds out that you belonged to the old regiment. But don't let it sink too deep on you. I'll stand by you, if there's anything I can do."
"Much obliged," said Shorty, "but I'm all right, and I oughtn't to need any standing by from anybody. That old fly-up-the-crick ought to be ashamed to even speak to a man who's bin fightin' at the front, while he was playin' off around home."
"He'll have plenty to say all the same," returned the Sergeant. "He's got one o' these self-acting mouths, with a perpetual-motion attachment. He don't do anything but talk, and mostly bad. Blame him, it's his fault that we're kept here, instead of being sent to the front, as we ought to be. Wish somebody'd shoot him."
The Provost-Marshal was found in his office, dealing out sentences like a shoulder-strapped Rhadamanthes. It was a place that just suited Billings's tastes. There he could bully to his heart's content, with no chance for his victims getting back at him, and could make it very uncomfortable for those who were disposed to sneer at his military career. With a scowl on his brow, and a big chew of tobacco in his mouth, he sat in his chair, and disposed of the cases brought before him with abusive comments, and in the ways that he thought would give the men the most pain and trouble. It was a manifestation of his power that he gloated over.
"Take the position of soldiers, you slouching clodhoppers," he said, with an assortment of oaths, as the squad entered the office. "One'd think you a passel o' hawbucks half-drunk at a log-rollin', instead o' soldiers in the presence o' your superior officer. Shut them gapin' mouths, lift up them shock-heads, button up your blouses, put your hands down to your sides, and don't no man speak to me without salootin'. And mind what you say, or I'll give you a spell on bread and water, and send you back in irons. I want you to understand that I'll have no foolishness. You can't monkey with me as you can with some officers.
"Had your pocket picked, and your furlough as well as your money taken," he sneered to the first statement. "You expect me to believe that, you sickly-faced yallerhammer. I'll just give you five days' hard labor before sending you back, for lying to me. Go over there to the left, and take your place in that police squad."
"No," he said to the second, "that sick mother racket won't work. Every man we ketch now skulking home is goin' to see his sick and dying mother. There wouldn't be no army if we allowed every man who has a sick mother to go and visit her. None o' your back talk, or I'll put the irons on you."
"No," to a third, "you can't go back to your boarding place for your things, not even with a guard. I know you. You'd give the guard the slip before you went 10 rods. Let your things go. Probably you stole 'em, anyway."
Lieut.-Col. Billings's eye lighted on Shorty, with an expression of having seen him somewhere.
"Where do you belong?" he asked crossly.
"Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry," replied Shorty proudly.
"Yes. I remember you now," said the Provost-Marshal savagely. "You're one o' them infernal nigger-thieves that brung disgrace on the regiment. You're one o' them that made it so notorious that decent men who had a respect for other people's property was glad to get out of it."
"You're a liar," said Shorty hotly. "You didn't git out o' the regiment because it stole niggers. That's only a pretend. The rear is full o' fellers like you who pretend to be sore on the nigger question, as an excuse for not going to the front. You sneaked out o' every fight the regiment went into. You got out of the regiment because it was too fond of doin' its duty."
"Shut up, you scoundrel! Buck-and-gag him, men," roared Billings, rising and shaking his fist at him.
"Stop that! You musn't talk that way," said the Sergeant, going over to Shorty, and shaking him roughly, while he whispered, "Don't make a blamed fool o' yourself. Keep quiet."
"I won't stop," said Shorty angrily; "I won't let no man talk that way about the 200th Ind., no matter if he wears as many leaves on his shoulders as there is on a beech tree. I'd tell the Major-General that he lied if he slandered the regiment, if I died for it the next minute."
"I order you to take him out and buck-and-gag him," shouted the Provost- Marshal.
The Sergeant caught Shorty by the shoulder, and pushed him out of the room, with much apparent roughness, but really using no more force than would make a show, while muttering his adjurations to cool down.
"I s'pose I've got to obey orders, and buck-and-gag you," said the Sergeant ruefully, as they were alone together in the room. "It goes against my grain, like the toothache. I'd rather you'd buck-and-gag me. But you are to blame for it yourself. You ought to have more sense than lay it into a Lieutenant-Colonel and Provost-Marshal that way. But you did give it to him fine, the old blow-hard and whisky-sucker. He's no more fit for shoulderstraps than a hog is for a paper-collar. Haven't heard anything for a long time that tickled me so, even while I was mad enough to pound you for having no more sense. I've bin aching to talk that way to him myself."
"Go ahead and obey your orders," said Shorty. "Don't mind me. I'm willin' to take it. I've had my say, which was worth a whole week o' buckin'. It 'll be something to tell the boys when I git back, that I saw old Billings swellin' around, and told him right before his own men just what we think of him. Lord, how it 'll tickle 'em. I'll forgit all about the buckin', but they won't forgit that."
"Blamed if I'll do it," said the Sergeant. "He can take off my stripes, and be blest to him. You said just what I think, and what we all think, and I ought to stand by you. I've a notion to go right back in the room and tell him I won't do it, and pull off my stripes and hand 'em to him, and tell him to take 'em and go to Halifax."
"Now, don't be a fool, Jim," remonstrated Shorty. "You won't help me, and you'll git yourself into trouble. Somebody's got to do it, and I'd rather it'd be you than somebody else. Go ahead and obey your orders. Git your rope and your stick and your bayonet."
"They're all here," said the Sergeant, producing them, with a regretful air. "We've plenty of use for them as long as old Billings is on deck. Say," said he, stopping, as a brighter look came into his face, "I've got an idea."
"Hold on to it till you kin mark its ears, so's you'll know it again for your property," said Shorty sarcastically. "Good idees are skeerce and valuable."
"Jeff Wilson, the General's Chief Clerk, who belongs to my company," said the Sergeant, "told me yesterday that they wanted another Orderly, and to pick out one for him. I'll send a note for him to detail you right off."
He hastily scratched off the following note on a piece of wrapping paper, folded it up, and sent secretly one of his boys on a run with it:
"Dear Jeff: Found you a first-class Orderly. It's Shorty, of my old regiment. He's in Billings's clutches, and in trouble. Send down a detail at once for Shorty Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Rush. Yours, Jim."
"Here, Sergeant," called out the Provost-Marshal from the other room, "what are you fooling around in there so long for?"
"Somebody's been monkeying with my things," called back the Sergeant. "If they don't let 'em alone I'll scalp somebody."
"Well, get through, and come out here, for there's some more work for you. Make a good job with that scoundrel. I'll be in presently and see it."
Shorty squatted down, and the Sergeant made as easy going an imitation as he could of the punishment.
The messenger encountered the young General near by, limping along on a conscientious morning inspection of things about his post. He had been but recently assigned to the position, to employ him while he was getting well of his wound received at Chickamauga, and was making a characteristic effort to know all about his command. He had sent his staff on various errands, but had his Chief Clerk with him to make notes.
"What's that?" he inquired, as the messenger handed the latter the note.
"Just a note from the Sergeant of the Guard about an Orderly," answered the clerk.
"Let me see it," said the General, who had an inveterate disposition for looking into the smallest details. "What's this? One of the 200th Ind.? Why, that was in my brigade. The 200th Ind. was cut all to pieces, but it stuck to that Snodgrass Hill tighter than a real-estate mortgage. One of the boys in trouble? We'll just go over to the Provost-Marshal's and see about him. It may be that I know him."
The sharp call of the Sergeant on duty outside to "Turn out the Guard for the General," the clatter of muskets, as he was obeyed, the sudden stiffening up of the men lounging about the entrance into the position of the soldier, and their respectful salutes as the General limped in, conveyed to Lieut.-Col. Billings intelligence as to his visitor, and his whole demeanor changed to one of obsequious welcome.
"Very unexpected, General, but very kind in you to visit me," he said, bowing, and washing his hands with invisible soap.
"No kindness at all. Colonel," said the General with official curtness. "Merely my duty, to personally acquaint myself with all portions of my command. I should have visited you before. By the way, I understand you have picked up here a man belonging to my brigade—to the 200th Ind. Where is he?"
Billings's face clouded.
"Yes, we have a man who claimed to belong to that regiment—a straggler, who hadn't any papers to show. I had no idea whether he was telling the truth. He was outrageously sassy, and I had to give him a lesson to keep a civil tongue in his head. Take a seat. I'll send for him."
"No; I'll go and see him," said the General. "Where is he?"
With a foreboding that the scene was going to be made unpleasant for him, Billings led the General into the guard-room.
Why, It's Shorty! Said the General, Recognizing Him At Once 129
"Why, it's Shorty," said the General, recognizing him at once, "who ran back at Stone River, in a heavy fire, and helped me from under my horse."
Shorty winked and nodded affirmatively.
"What was the matter, Colonel?" inquired the General.
"Well," said Billings, defensively, "the feller is a straggler, without papers to show where he belonged, and he was very sassy to me—called me a liar, and said other mean things, right before my men, and I had to order him bucked-and-gagged to shut him up."
"Strange," said General; "I always found him very respectful and obedient. I thought I hadn't a better soldier in my brigade."
Shorty winked appreciatively at Serg't Elkins.
"Take out the gag, let him up, and let me hear what he has to say," said the General.
Shorty was undone and helped to his feet, when he respectfully saluted. His weakness was so apparent that the General ordered him to sit down, and then asked him questions which brought out his story. "You were promoted Corporal, if I recollect," said he, "for gallantry in capturing one of the rebel flags taken by my brigade."
"Yes, sir," answered Shorty.
Billings was feeling very uncomfortable.
"He called me a liar, and a stay-at-home sneak, and other insultin' things," protested he.
"General, he slandered the 200 Ind., which I won't allow no man to do, no matter what he has on his shoulders. I told him that he'd bin fired out o' the regiment, and was a-bummin' in the rear, and hadn't no business abusin' men who was doin' and respectful."
"Hum—very insubordinate, very unsoldierly," said the General. "Very unlike you. Corporal. I'm surprised at you. You were always very obedient and respectful."
"Always to real officers," said Shorty; "but—"
"Silence," said the General, sternly. "Don't aggravate the offense. You were properly punished."
"I ain't kickin' about it," said Shorty stubbornly. "I've got the worth of it."
"I think," continued the General, after having properly vindicated discipline, "that that blow you received on your head may affect your brain at times, and make you unduly irritable. I think I'll have the Surgeon examine you. Put him in an ambulance, Wilson, and take him over to the Surgeon. Then bring him to Headquarters with the report."
Turning to the Lieutenant-Colonel the General said:
"I had another object in visiting you this morning. Colonel. I've got some good news for you. I've found your officers and men very weary of their long tour of provost duty here, and anxious to go to the front. Of course, I know that you feel the same way."
Billings tried to look as if he did, but the attempt was not a success.
"I have represented to Headquarters, therefore," continued the General, "that it would be to the advantage of the service to have this fine full regiment sent to the front, and its place taken by one that has been run down by hard service, and so get a chance for it to rest and recruit. The General has accepted my views, and orders me to have you get ready to move at once."
"I have tried to do my dooty here, and I thought," murmured Billings, "that it was to the advantage of the Government to have as Provost- Marshal a man who knowed all these fellers and their tricks. It'd take a new man a long time to learn 'em."
"I appreciate that," said the General. "But it's not just to you or your men to make you do so much of this work. I'm expecting every minute notice of a regiment being sent to relieve yours, and therefore you will be ready to start as soon as it arrives. Good morning, sir."
The only relief that Billings could find to his feelings after the General's departure was to kick one of the men's dog out of his office with a great deal of vindictiveness.
X. SHORTY AS ORDERLY HAS A TOUR OF DUTY AT THE GENERAL'S HEADQUARTERS
"WELL," said the General, after he had listened to Shorty's story, and questioned him a little, "you are all right now. I'll take care of you. The Surgeon says that you are not fit to go back to the front, and will not be for some time. They have got more sick and convalescents down there now than they can take good care of. The army's gone into Winter quarters, and will probably stay there until Spring opens, so that they don't need either of us. I'll detail you as Orderly at these Headquarters, and you can go back with me when I do."
"I s'pose that's all right and satisfactory," said Shorty, saluting. "It's got to be, anyway. In the army a man with a star on his shoulder's got the last say, and kin move the previous question whenever he wants to. I never had no hankerin' for a job around Headquarters, and now that I'm a Korpril I ought to be with my company. But they need you worse'n they do me, and I've noticed that you was always as near the front as anybody, so I don't think I'll lose no chances by stayin' with you."
"I promise you that we shall both go as soon as there's any prospect of something worth going for," said the General, smiling. "Report there to Wilson. He will instruct you as to your duties."
Wilson's first instructions were as to Shorty's personal appearance. He must get a clean shave and a hair-cut, a necktie, box of paper collars, a pair of white gloves, have blouse neatly brushed and buttoned to his throat and his shoes polished.
"Dress parade every day?" asked Shorty, despairingly.
"Just the same as dress parade every day," answered the Chief Clerk. "Don't want any scarecrows around these Headquarters. We're on dress parade all the time before the people and other soldiers, and must show them how soldiers ought to appear. You'll find a barber-shop and a bootblack around the corner. Make for them at once, and get yourself in shape to represent Headquarters properly."
"Don't know but I'd ruther go to the front and dig rifle-pits than to wear paper collars and white gloves every day in the week," soliloquized Shorty, as he walked out on the street. "Don't mind 'em on Sunday, when you kin take 'em off agin when the company's dismissed from parade; but to put 'em on in the mornin' when you git up, and wear 'em till you go to bed at night—O, Jehosephat! Don't think I've got the constitution to stand that sort o' thing. But it's orders, and I'll do it, even if it gives me softenin' o' the brain. Here, you—(beckoning to a bootblack), put a 250-pounder Monitor coat o' polish on them Tennessee River gunboats. Fall in promptly, now."
The little darky gave an estimating glance at the capacious cowhides, which had not had a touch of the brush since being drawn from the Quarter master, and then yelled to a companion on the other side of the street:
"Hey, Taters, come lend me a spit. I'se got a' army contrack."
"Vhat golor off a gravat do you vant?" asked the Jewish vender of haberdashery, who was rapidly amassing a fortune from the soldiers. "Dere's plack, red, kreen, plue—all lofely golors, unt de vinest kint off silk. Yoost de same as Cheneral Krant vears. He puys lods off me. Von't puy off nopody else vhen he gan ket to me. Now, dere's vun dat'll yoost suit your light gomplexion. You gan vear dat on St. Batrick's day."
And he picked out one of bright green that would have made Shorty's throat seem in wild revolt against his hair.
"Well, I don't know," said Shorty meditatively, pulling over the lot. Then a thought struck him. Taking out the bit of Maria's dress, he said:
"Give me something as near as possible the color of that."
"Veil, I've kot rid off datt off-golored negdie, dat I fought I nefer vould sell," meditated the Jew, as Shorty left. "I'm ahet yoost a tollar-unt-a-haluf on aggount off dat vild Irishman's kirl. Veil, de kirls ket some fellers into sgrapes, unt helps udders oud."
With this philosophical observation the Jew resumed his pleasant work of marking up his prices to better accord with his enlarged views as to the profits he could get off the soldiers.
When Shorty returned to Headquarters, neatly shaven and brushed, and took the position of a soldier before the Chief Clerk, that functionary remarked approvingly:
"Very good, very good, indeed. You'll be an ornament to Headquarters."
And the General, entering the room at that time, added:
"Yes, you are as fine a looking soldier as one would wish to see, and an examaple to others. But you have not your Corporal's chevrons on. Allow me to present you with a pair. It gives me pleasure, for you have well earned them."
Stepping back into his office he returned with the chevrons in his hand.
"There, find a tailor outside somewhere to sew them on. You are now a non-commissioned officer on my staff, and I expect you to do all you can to maintain its character and dignity."
Shorty's face flushed with pride as he saluted, and thought, without saying:
"You jest bet I will. Any loafer that don't pay proper respect to this here staff'll git his blamed neck broke."
"Here," said the Chief Clerk, handing Shorty an official envelope, when the latter returned from having his chevrons sewed on. "Take this down to Col. Billings. Mind you do it in proper style. Don't get to sassing old Billings. Stick the envelope in your belt, walk into the office, take the position of a soldier, salute, and hand him the envelope, saying, 'With the compliments of the General,' salute again, about-face, and walk out."
"I'll want to punch his rotten old head off the minute I set eyes on him," remarked Shorty, sotto voce; "but the character and dignity of the staff must be maintained."
Lieut.-Col. Billings started, and his face flushed, when he saw Shorty stalk in, severely erect and soldierly. Billings was too little of a soldier to comprehend the situation. His first thought was that Shorty, having been taken under the General's wing, had come back to triumph over him, and he prepared himself with a volley of abuse to meet that of his visitor. But Shorty, with stern eyes straight to the front, marched up to him, saluted in one-two-three time, drew the envelope from his belt, and thrusting it at him as he would his gun to the inspecting officer on parade, announced in curtly official tones, "With General's compliments, sir," saluted again, about-faced as if touched with a spring, and marched stiffly toward the door.
Billings hurriedly glanced at the papers, and saw that instead of some unpleasant order from the General, which he had feared, they were merely some routine matters. His bullying instinct at once reasserted itself:
"Puttin' on a lot o' scollops, since, just because you're detailed at Headquarters," he called out after Shorty. "More style than a blue- ribbon horse at a county fair, just because the General took a little notice of you. But you'll not last long. I know you."
"Sir," said Shorty, facing about and stiffly saluting, "if you've got any message for the General, I'll deliver it. If you hain't, keep your head shet."
"O, go on; go on, now, you two-for-a-cent Corporal. Don't you give me any more o' your slack, or I'll report you for your impudence, and have them stripes jerked offen you."
'what Do You Think of That?' Said the Gambler. 141
Hot words sprang to Shorty's lips, but he remembered the General's injunction about the character and dignity of the staff, and restrained himself to merely saying:
"Col. Billings, some day I won't belong to the staff, and you won't have no shoulder-straps. Then I'll invite you to a little discussion, without no moderator in the chair."
"Go on, now. Don't you dare threaten me," shouted Billings.
"How'd you get along with Billings?" inquired the Chief Clerk, when Shorty returned.
"About as well as the monkey and the parrot did," answered Shorty, and he described the interview, ending with:
"I never saw a man who was achin' for a good lickin' like that old bluffer. And he'll git it jest as soon as he's out o' the service, if I have to walk a hundred miles to give it to him."
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a good while," answered Wilson. "He'll stay in the service as long as he can keep a good soft berth like this. He's now bombarding everybody that's got any influence with telegrams to use it to keep him here in the public interest. He claims that on account of his familiarity with things here he is much more valuable to the Government here than he would be in the field."
"No doubt o' that," said Shorty. "He ain't worth a groan in the infernal regions at the front. He only takes the place and eats the rations of some man that might be of value."
"See here," said Wilson, pointing to a pile of letters and telegrams on his desk. "These are protests against Billings being superseded and sent away. More are coming in all the time. They are worrying the General like everything, for he wants to do the right thing. But I know that they all come from a ring of fellows around here who sell whisky and slop-shop goods to the soldiers, and skin them alive, and are protected by Billings. They're whacking up with him, and they want him to stay. I'm sure of it, but I haven't any proof, and there's no use saying anything to the General unless I've got the proof to back it."
"Wonder if I couldn't help git the proof," suggested Shorty, with his sleuth instincts reviving.
"Just the man," said the Chief Clerk eagerly, "if you go about it right. You're a stranger here, and scarcely anybody knows that you belong to Headquarters. Get yourself back in the shape you were this morning, and go out and try your luck. It'll just be bully if we can down this old blowhard."
Shorty took off his belt and white gloves, unbuttoned his blouse, and lounged down the street to the quarter where the soldiers most congregated to be fleeced by the harpies gathered there as the best place to catch men going to or returning from the front. Shorty soon recognized running evil-looking shops, various kinds of games and drinking dens several men who had infested the camps about Nashville and Murfreesboro until the Provost-Marshal had driven them away.
"Billings has gathered all his old friends about him," said he to himself. "I guess I'll find somebody here that I kin use."
"Hello, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler.
Shorty remembered him at once as the man with whom he had had the adventure with the loaded dice at Murfreesboro. With the fraternity of the class, neither remembered that little misadventure against the other. They had matched their wits for a wrestle, and when the grapple was over it was over.
Shorty therefore replied pleasantly:
"O, jest loafin' back here, gittin' well o' a crack on the head and the camp fever."
"Into anything to put in the time?"
"Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life in it."
"Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any money?"
"A hundred or so," answered Shorty.
"Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down this week."
"I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This Provost-Marshall—"
"O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin' right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little divvy whenever he asks for it."
"If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd—"
"Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock with him."
When seated at a quiet table, with their glasses in front of them, the gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o' that?"
Shorty read over laboriously:
"Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt this morning. Yores,
"Billings."
"That seems convincing," said Shorty.
"Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read:
"Deer Bat: Got yore $100 all right, but doant send by that man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it yourself, or put it in an envelope directed to me, & drop it in my box. Yores,
"Billings."
"That's enough," said Shorty, with his mind in a tumult, as to how he was to get these papers into his possession. "I'll go in with you, if you'll take me. Here's my fist."
He reached out and shook hands with Bat Meacham over the bargain, and called to the waiter, "Here, fill 'em up agin."
Shorty pulled some papers out of his pocket to search for his money, and fumbled them over. There were two pieces among them resembling the scraps on which Billings had written his notes. They contained some army doggerel which the poet of Co. Q had written and Shorty was carrying about as literary treasures.
The waiter wiped off the table as he replaced the glasses, and Shorty lifted up the gambler's papers to permit him to do so. He laid down his own papers instead, and with them a $10 bill.
"There," he said; "I find that's all the money I have with me, but it's enough to bind the bargain. I left a couple hundred with the clerk at the tavern. I'll go right up and git it, and we'll settle the thing right here."
"Very good," replied Bat Meacham; "git back as quick as you kin. You'll find me either here or hangin' around near. Let's fix the thing up and git ready. I think a new regiment'll be down here tomorrow, and all the men'll have their first installment o' bounty and a month's pay."
Shorty hurried back to Headquarters and laid his precious papers before the Chief Clerk, who could not contain his exultation.
"Won't there be a tornado when the General sees these in the morning," he exclaimed. "He's gone out to camp, now, or I'd take them right to him. But he shall have them first thing in the morning."
The next morning Shorty waited with eager impatience while the General was closeted with his Chief Clerk. Presently the General stepped to the door and said sternly:
"Corporal."
"Yes, sir," said Shorty, springing to his feet and saluting.
"Go down at once to the Provost-Marshal's office and tell Col. Billings to come to Headquarters at once. To come at once, without a moment's delay."
"Yes, sir," said Shorty saluting, with a furtive wink at the Chief Clerk, which said as plainly as words, "No presenting compliments this time."
He found Billings, all unconscious of the impending storm, dealing out wrath on those who were hauled before him.
"Col. Billings," said Shorty, standing stiff as a ramrod and curtly saluting, "the General wants you to come to Headquarters at once."
"Very well," replied Billings; "report to the General that I'll come as soon as I dispose of this business."
"That'll not do," said Shorty with stern imperiousness. "The General orders (with a gloating emphasis on 'orders') you to drop everything else, and come instantly. You're to go right back with me."
Shorty enjoyed the manifest consternation in Billings's face as he heard this summons. The men of the office pricked up their ears, and looked meaningly at one another. Shorty saw it all, and stood as straight and stern as if about to lead Billings to execution.
Billings, with scowling face, picked up his hat, buttoned his coat, and walked out.
"Do you know what the General wants with me. Shorty?" he asked in a conciliatory way, when they were alone together on the sidewalk.
"My name's Corporal Elliott. You will address me as such," answered Shorty.
"Go to the devil," said Billings.
Billings tried to assume a cheerfully-genial air as he entered the General's office, but the grin faded at the sight of the General's stern countenance.
"Col. Billings," said the General, handing him the two pieces of paper, "do you recognize these?"
"Can't say that I do," answered Billings, pretending to examine them while he could recover his wits sufficiently for a fine of defense.
"Don't attempt to lie to me," said the General wrathfully, "or I'll forget myself sufficiently to tear the straps from your disgraced shoulders. I have compared these with other specimens of your handwriting, until I have no doubt. I have sent for you not to hear your defense, or to listen to any words from you. I want you to merely sit down there and sign this resignation, and then get out of my office as quickly as you can. I don't want to breathe the same air with you. I ought to courtmartial you, and set you to hard work on the fortifications, but I hate the scandal. I have already telegraphed to Army Headquarters to accept your resignation by wire, and I shall send it by telegraph.
"I cannot get you out of the army too quickly. Sign this, and leave my office, and take off your person every sign of your connection with the army. I shall give orders that if you appear on the street with so much as a military button on, it shall be torn off you."
As the crushed Lieutenant-Colonel was leaving the office, Shorty lounged up, and said:
"See here. Mister Billings—you're Mister Billings now, and a mighty ornery Mister, too, I'm going to lay for you, and settle several little p'ints with you. You've bin breedin' a busted head, and I'm detailed to give it to you. Git out, you hound."
XI. SHORTY RUNS HEADQUARTERS GETS ENTIRELY TOO BIG FOR HIS PLACE
THE disturbance in the Deacon's family when Shorty's note was delivered by little Sammy Woggles quite came up to that romance-loving youth's fond anticipations. If he could only hope that his own disappearance would create a fraction of the sensation he would have run away the next day. It would be such a glorious retribution on those who subjected him to the daily tyranny of rising early in the morning, washing his face, combing his hair, and going to school. For the first time in his life the boy found himself the center of interest in the family. He knew something that all the rest were intensely eager to know, and they plied him with questions until his young brain whirled. He told them all that he knew, except that which Shorty had enjoined upon him not to tell, and repeated his story without variation when separately examined by different members of the family. All his leisure for the next few days was put in laboriously constructing, on large sheets of foolscap, the following letter, in which the thumb-marks and blots were more conspicuous than the "pot-hook" letters:
dEER shoRty:
doNt 4git thAt REblE guN u promist mE.
thAir wAs An oRful time wheN i giv um yorE lEttEr.
missis klEgg shE cride.
mAriAr shE sEd did u EvEr No Ennything so Ridiklus.
si hE sed thAt shorty kood be morE Kinds ov fool in A minnit thAn Ary uthEr boy hE Ever node, Not bArrin Tompsons colt.
thE deAcon hE wAntid 2 go 2 the tranE & stop u. When hE found hE kooddEnt do that, hE wAntid 2 tElEgrAf 2 Arrest u & bring u bAk.
But si hE sEd bEttEr let u run till u got tirEd. Ude fEtch up sum whAir soon. Then thEy wood sHp a bridlE ovEr yore hEAd & brink u bAk.
i hAint told mAriA nothin but u hAd bEtEr sEnd thAt gun rite off.
ile look 4 it EvEry dAy til i git it.
mi pen iz bAd, mi ink iz pAle, send thAt gun & NEVEr f ALE.
YorEs, SAM.
As soon as he saw that he was likely to remain at Headquarters for some time. Shorty became anxious about that letter from Sammy, and after much scheming and planning, he at last bethought himself of the expedient of having the Chief Clerk write an official letter to Sam Elkins, the postmaster and operator at Bean Blossom Creek Station, directing him to forward to Headquarters any communications addressed to Corp'l Elliott, 200th Ind. Vols., and keep this matter a military secret.
In spite of his prepossessions against it, Shorty took naturally to Headquarters duty, as he did to everything else in the army. He even took a pride in his personal appearance, and appeared every morning as spick and span as the barber-shop around the corner could make him. This was because the General saw and approved it, and—because of the influence Maria had projected into his life. The Deacon's well-ordered home had been a revelation to him of another world, of which he wanted to be a part. The gentle quiet and the constant consideration for others that reigned there smoothed off his rough corners and checked the rasping of his ready tongue.
"I'm goin' to try to be half-white," he mentally resolved; "at least, as long's I'm north o' the Ohio River. When I'm back agin at the front, I kin take a rest from being respectable."
He was alert, prompt, and observant, and before he was himself aware of it began running things about the ante-rooms to Headquarters. More and more the General and Chief Clerk kept putting the entire disposal of certain matters in his hands, and it was not surprising that he acted at times as if he were the Headquarters himself, and the General and others merely attaches. Shorty always had that way about him.
"No, you can't see the General today," he would say to a man as to whom he had heard the General or the Chief Clerk hint was a bore, and wasted their time. "The General's very busy. The President's layin' down on him for his advice about a campaign to take Richmond by a new way, and the General's got to think at the rate of a mile a minute in order to git it off by telegraph."
Don't You Know Better Than to Come To Headquarters Like That? 156
"Here," to a couple of soldiers who came up to get their furloughs extended, "don't you know better than to come to Headquarters looking as if your clothes had been blowed on to you? How long've you bin in the army? Hain't you learned yit that you must come to Headquarters in full dress? Go back and git your shoes blacked, put on collars, button up your coats, and come up here lookin' like soldiers, not teamsters on the Tullyhomy mud march."
"No," very decisively, to a big-waisted, dark-bearded man; "you can't git no permit here to open no shebang in camp or anywheres near. Too many like you out there now. We're goin' to root 'em all out soon. They're all sellin' whisky on the sly, and every last one of 'em orter be in jail."
"Certainly, madam," tenderly to a poor woman who had come to see if she could learn something of her son, last heard from as sick in hospital at Chattanooga. "Sit down. Take that chair—no, that one; it's more comfortable. Give me your son's name and regiment. I'll see if we kin find out anything about him. No use seein' the General. I'll do jest as well, and 'll tend to it quicker."
"No," to a raw Captain, who strolled in, smoking a cheap cheroot. "The General's not in to an officer who comes in here like as if Headquarters was a ward caucus. He'll be in to you when you put on your sword and button up your coat."
It amused and pleased the General to see Shorty take into his hands the administration of military etiquette; but one day, when he was accompanying the General on a tour of inspection, and walking stiffly at the regulation distance behind, a soldier drunk enough to be ugly lurched past, muttering some sneers about "big shoulder-straps."
Shorty instantly snatched him by the collar and straightened him up.
"Take the position of a soldier," he commanded.
The astonished man tried to obey.
"Throw your chest out," commanded Shorty, punching him in the ribs. "Little fingers down to the seams of your pants," with a cuff at his ears. "Put your heels together, and turn out your toes," kicking him on the shin. "Hold up your head," jabbing him under the chin. "'Now respectfully salute."
The cowed man clumsily obeyed.
"Now, take that to learn you how to behave after this in the presence of a General officer," concluded Shorty, giving him a blow in the face that sent him over.
The General had walked on, apparently without seeing what was going on. But after they had passed out of the sight of the group which the affair had gathered, he turned and said to Shorty:
"Corporal, discipline must be enforced in the army, but don't you think you were a little too summary and condign with that man?"
"Hardly know what you mean by summary and condign. General, But if you mean warm by summary, I'll say that he didn't git it half hot enough. If I'd had my strength back I'd a' condigned his head off. But he got his lesson jest when he needed it, and he'll be condigned sure to behave decently hereafter."
Just then ex-Lieut.-Col. Billings came by. He was dressed in citizen's clothes, and he glared at Shorty and the General, but there was something in the latter's face and carriage which dominated him in spite of himself, his camp associations asserted themselves, and instinctively his hand went to his hat in a salute.
This was enough excuse for Shorty. He fell back until the General was around the corner, out of sight, and then went up to Billings.
"Mister Billings," said he, sternly, "what was the General's orders about wearin' anything military?"
"Outrageously tyrannical and despotic," answered Billings hotly. "But jest what you might expect from these Abolition satraps, who're throttlin' our liberties. A white man's no longer got any rights in this country that these military upstarts is bound to respect. But I'm obeyin' the order till I kin git an appeal from it."
"You're a liar. You're not," said Shorty, savagely.
"Why, what in the world have I got on that's military?" asked Billings, looking himself over.
"You're wearin' a military saloot, which you have no business to. You've got no right to show that you ever was in the army, or so much as seen a regiment. You salooted the General jest now. Don't you ever let me see you do it to him agin, or to no other officer. You musn't do nothin' but take off your hat and bow. You hear me?"
Shorty was rubbing it in on his old tormentor in hopes to provoke him to a fight. But the cowed man was too fearful of publicity just then. He did not know what might be held in reserve to spring upon him. He shambled away, muttering:
"O, go on! Grind down upon me. You'll be wantin' to send me to a Lincoln bastile next. But a day will come when white men'll have their rights agin."
Unfortunately for Shorty, however, he was having things too much his own way. There were complaints that he was acting as if he owned Headquarters.
Even the General noticed it, and would occasionally say in tones of gentle remonstrance:
"See here, Corporal, you are carrying too big a load. Leave something for the rest of us to do. We are getting bigger pay than you are, and should have a chance to earn our money."
But Shorty would not take the hint. With his rapidly-returning strength there had come what Si termed "one of his bull-headed spells," which inevitably led to a cataclysm, unless it could be worked off legitimately, as it usually was at the front by a toilsome march, a tour of hard fatigue duty, or a battle or skirmish. But the routine of Headquarters duties left him too much chance to get "fat and sassy."
One day the General and his staff had to go over to Louisville to attend some great military function, and Shorty was left alone in charge of Headquarters. There was nothing for him to do but hold a chair down, and keep anybody from carrying off the Headquarters. This was a dangerous condition, in his frame of mind. He began meditating how he could put in the idle hours until the General should return in the evening. He thought of hunting up Billngs, and giving him that promised thrashing, but his recent experience did not promise hopefully that he could nag that worthy into a fight that would be sufficiently interesting.
"I'd probably hit him a welt and he'd go off bawlin' like a calf," he communed with himself. "No; Billings is too tame, now, until he finds out whether we've got anything on him to send him to the penitentiary, where he orter go."
Looking across the street he noticed Eph Click, whom he had known as a camp-follower down in Tennessee, and was now running a "place" in the unsavory part of the town. Shorty had the poorest opinion of Eph, but the latter was a cunning rascal, who kept on the windy side of the law, and had so far managed to escape the active notice of the Provost- Marshal. He was now accompanied by a couple of men in brand-new uniforms, so fresh that they still had the folds of the Quartermaster's boxes.
"There goes that unhung rascal, Eph Glick," he said to himself, "that orter be wearin' a striped suit, and breakin' stone in the penitentiary. He's runnin' a reg'lar dead-fall down the street, there, and he's got a couple o' green recruits in tow, steerin' them to where he kin rob 'em of their pay and bounty. They won't have a cent left in two hours. I've bin achin' to bust him up for a long time, but I've never bin able to git the p'ints on him that'd satisfy the General or the Provo. I'll jest go down and clean out his shebang and run him out o' town, and finish the job up while the General and the Provo's over in Louisville. It'll all be cleaned up before they git back, and they needn't know a word of it. Eph's got no friends around here to complain. He's a yaller hound, that nobody cares what's done to him. It'll be good riddance o' bad rubbish."
He stalked out of the Headquarters, and beckoned imperiously to a squad that he saw coming down the street under the command of a Sergeant. Seeing him come out of Headquarters there was no question of his right to order, and the Sergeant and squad followed.
They arrived in front of Eph's place about the same time he did.
"Take that man," said Shorty, pointing to Eph, "and put him aboard the next train that goes out. Think yourself lucky, sir, that you git off so easily. If you ever show your face back here agin you'll be put at hard labor on the fortifications for the rest o' your natural life. Hustle him off to the depot, a couple of you, and see that he goes off when the train does. The rest o' you bring out all the liquor in that place, and pour it into the gutter. Sergeant, see that nobody's allowed to drink or carry any away."
Nothing more was needed for the crowd that had followed up the squad, anticipating a raid. Bottles, demijohns and kegs were smashed, the cigars and tobacco snatched up, and the place thoroughly wrecked in a few minutes.
Shorty contemplated the ruin from across the street, and strolled back to Headquarters, serenely conscious of having put in a part of the day to good advantage.
That evening the Provost-Marshal came into Headquarters, and said:
"I'm sorry, General, that you felt that Click place so bad that you were compelled to take personal action. I have known for some time that something ought to be done, but I've been trying to collect evidence that would hold Glick on a criminal charge, so that I could turn him over to the civil authorities."
"I do not understand what you mean, Colonel," answered the General.
"I mean that Glick place that was raided by your orders today."
"I gave no orders to raid any place. I have left all those matters in your hands, Colonel, with entire confidence that you would do the right thing."
"Why, one of my Sergeants reported that a Corporal came from your Headquarters, and directed the raid to be made."
"A Corporal from my Headquarters?" repeated the General, beginning to understand. "That's another development of that irrepressible Shorty." And he called:
"Corp'l Elliott."
"Yes, sir," responded Shorty, appearing at the door and saluting.
"Did you raid the establishment of a person named"
"Eph Glick," supplied the Provost-Marshal.
"Yes, Ephraim Glick. Did you direct it; and, if so, what authority had you for doing so?"
"Yes, sir," said Shorty promptly. "I done it on my own motion. It was a little matter that needed tending to, and I didn't think it worth while to trouble either you or the Provo about it. The feller's bin dead-ripe for killin' a long time. I hadn't nothin' else to do, so I thought I'd jest git that job offen my hands, and not to have to think about it any more."
"Corporal," said the General sternly, "I have not objected to your running my office, for I probably need all the help in brains and activity that I can get. But I must draw the line at your assuming the duties of the Provost-Marshal in addition. He is quite capable of taking care of his own office. You have too much talent for this narrow sphere. Gen. Thomas needs you to help him run the army. Tell Wilson to make out your transportation, so that you can start for your regiment tomorrow. The Provost-Marshal and I will have to try to run this town without your help. It will be hard work, I know; but, then, that is what we came into the service for."
Shorty grumbled to another Orderly as he returned to his place in the next room:
"There, you see all the thanks you git for bein' a hustler in the way of doin' your dooty. I done a job for 'em that they should've 'tended to long ago, and now they sit down on me for it."
XII. SHORTY ON A HUNT GOES AFTER KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
THAT evening, as Shorty was gathering his things together, preparatory for starting to the front the next morning, Lieut. Bigelow, one of the General's young Aids, thrust his head through the doorway and said gleefully:
"Here, Corporal; I want you. I've got a great lark. Our Secret Service people report a bad lodge of the Knights of the Golden Circle out here in the country that threatens to make trouble. It is made up of local scalawags and runaway rebels from Kentucky and Tennessee. They have a regular lodge-room in a log house out in the woods, which they have fixed up into a regular fort, and they hold their meetings at nights, with pickets thrown out, and no end of secrecy and mystery. The General thinks that they are some of the old counterfeiting, horse-stealing gang that infested the country, and are up to their old tricks. But it may be that they are planning wrecking a train, burning bridges and the like. They've got so bold that the Sheriff and civil officials are afraid of them, and don't dare go near them. I've persuaded the General to let me take out a squad and jump them. Want to go along?"
"I'm your huckleberry," said Shorty.
"I knew you'd be," answered the Lieutenant; "so I got the General to let me have you. We'll get some 10 or 12 other good boys. That will be enough. I understand that there are about 100 regular attendants at the lodge, but they'll not all be there at any time, and a dozen of us can easily handle what we find there at home."
"A dozen'll be a great plenty," assented Shorty. "More'd be in the way."
"Well, go out and pick up that many of the right kind of boys, bring them here, and have them all ready by 10 o'clock. You can find guns and ammunition for them in that room upstairs."
Shorty's first thought was of his old friend, Bob Ramsey, Sergeant of the Provost-Guard. He found him, and said:
"See here, Bob, I've got something on hand better'n roundin' up stragglers and squelchin' whisky rows. I've got to pick out some men for a little raid, where there'll be a chance for a red-hot shindy. Want to go along?"
"You bet," answered the Sergeant. "How many men do you want? I'll get 'em and go right along."
"No, you don't," answered Shorty. "I'm to be the non-commish of this crowd. A Lieutenant'll go along for style, but I'll run the thing."
"But you're only a Corporal, while I'm a Sergeant," protested Bob. "'Taint natural that you should go ahead of me. Why can't you and I run it together, you next to me? That's the correct thing."
"Well, then," said Shorty, turning away, "you stay and run your old Provo-Guard. This is my show, and I aint goin' to let nobody in it ahead o' me."
"Come, now, be reasonable," pleaded Bob. "Why can't you and I go along together and run the thing? We'll pull together all right. You know I've been a Sergeant for a long time, and know all about the handling of men."
"Well, stay here and handle 'em. I'll handle the men that I take, all right. You kin gamble on that. And what I say to them has to go. Won't have nobody along that outranks me."
"Well," answered Bob, with a gulp, "let me go along, then, as a Corporal—I'll change my blouse and borrow a Corporal's—"
"Rankin' after me?" inquired Shorty.
"Yes; we had a Corporal promoted day before yesterday. I'll borrow his blouse."
"Promoted day before yesterday," communed Shorty; "and you won't presume to boss or command no more'n he would?"
"Not a mite," asserted Bob.
"Well, then, you kin come along, and I'll be mighty glad to have you, for I know you're a standup feller and a good friend o' mine, and I always want to oblige a friend by lettin' him have a share in any good fight I have on hand."
Jeff Wilson, the Chief Clerk, got wind of the expedition, and he too begged to be taken along, to which Shorty consented.
When Lieut. Bigelow came in at 10 o'clock he found Shorty at the head of 12 good men, all armed and equipped, and eager for the service.
"In talking with the Secret Service men," explained the Lieutenant, "they suggested that it would be well to have one good man, a stranger, dressed in citizen's clothes—butternut jeans, if possible—to go ahead at times and reconnoiter. He ought to be able to play off refugee rebel, if possible."
"I'll do it. I'm just the man," said Shorty eagerly.
"Well, just come in here," said the Lieutenant. "Now, there's a lot of butternut jeans. I guess there's a pair of pantaloons long enough for you."
When Shorty emerged from the room again there was a complete transformation. Except that his hair was cut close, he was a perfect reproduction of the tall, gaunt, slouching Tennesseean.
"Perfect," said the Lieutenant, handing him a couple of heavy Remington revolvers. "Stow these somewhere about your clothes, and get that blacking off your shoes as soon as you can, and you'll do."
It was planned that they should sleep until near morning, when the spies of the Knights of the Golden Circle were not alert, enter a freight-car, which they would keep tightly shut, to escape observation, while the train ran all day toward a point within easy reach of their quarry. It would arrive there after dark, and so they hoped to catch the Knights entirely unawares, and in the full bloom of their audacity and pride.
The car which the squad entered was locked and sealed, and labeled, "Perishable freight. Do not delay." Their presence was kept secret from all the train hands but the conductor, a man of known loyalty and discretion.
Shorty being in disguise, it was decided that he should saunter down apart from the rest and take his place in the caboose. He lay down on the long seat, drew his slouch-hat over his eyes, and seemed to go to sleep. The train pulled out to the edge of the yard, went onto a switch and waited for the early morning accommodation to pass out and get the right-of-way.
A heavily-built, middle-aged man, whose coarse face had evidently been closely shaved a few days before, entered, carrying a large carpet-sack, which was well-filled and seemingly quite heavy. He set this carefully down on the seat, in the corner, walked up to the stove, warmed his hands, glanced sharply at Shorty, said "Good morning," to which Shorty replied with a snore, took a plug of tobacco from his pocket, from which he cut a liberal chew with a long dirk that he opened by giving a skillful flip with his wrist, put the chew in his mouth, released the spring which held the blade in place, put both knife and tobacco in his pocket, and turning around spread the tails of his seedy black frock coat, and seemed lost in meditation as he warmed.
"Not a farmer, storekeeper or stock-buyer," Shorty mentally sized him up, "Looks more like a hickory lawyer, herb-doctor or tin-horn gambler. What's he doin' in this caboose? Up to some devilment, no doubt. He'll bear watchin'."
And Shorty gave another snore. The man, having completed his warming, sat down by his carpetsack, laid his arm across it to secure possession, pulled his battered silk hat down over his eyes, and tried to go to sleep.
The train rumbled out, and presently stopped at another station. Another man got on, also carrying a large, heavy carpet-sack. He was younger than the other, looked like a farm-hand, was dressed partly in homespun, partly in "store-clothes," wore a weather-stained wool hat, and his sullen face terminated in a goatee. The first-comer looked him over an instant, and then said:
"Were you out late last night?"
"I was," replied the second-comer, scanning his interrogator.
"Did you see a star?"
"I did."
"What star was it?"
"It was the Star of Bethlehem."
"Right, my brother," responded the other, putting out his hand in a peculiar way for the grip of the order.
Shorty, still feigning deep sleep, pricked up his ears and drank in every word. He had heard before of the greeting formula by which Knights of the Golden Circle recognized one another, and he tried, with only partial success, to see the grip.
He saw the two men whisper together and tap their carpet-sacks significantly. They seemed to come to a familiar understanding at once, but they talked so low that Shorty could not catch their words, except once when the first-comer raised his voice to penetrate the din as they crossed a bridge, and did not lower it quickly enough after passing, and Shorty heard;
"They'll all be certain to be there tonight."
And the other asked: "And the raid'll be made ter-morrer?"
The first-comer replied with a nod. At the next bridge the same thing occurred, and Shorty caught the words:
"They've no idee. We'll ketch 'em clean offen their guard."
"And the others'll come out?" asked the second-comer.
"Certainly," said the first, lowering his voice again, but the look on his face and the way he pointed indicated to Shorty that he was saying that other lodges scattered through the neighborhood were only waiting the striking of the first blow to rise in force and march on Indianapolis, release the rebel prisoners there and carry havoc generally.
"I see through it all," Shorty communed with himself. "They're goin' to the same place that we are, and've got them carpet-bags filled with revolvers and cartridges. Somebody's goin' to have a little surprise party before he's a day older."
The sun had now gotten so high that Shorty could hardly pretend to sleep longer. He gave a tremendous yawn and sat up. The older man regarded him attentively, the other sullenly.
"You must've bin out late last night, stranger," said the first.
"I was," answered Shorty, giving him a meaning look.
"Did you see a star?" inquired the older man.
"I did," answered Shorty.
"What star was it?"
"The Star of Bethlehem," answered Shorty boldly.
"'You're right, my brother," said the man, putting out his hand for the grip. Shorty did the same, trying to imitate what he had seen. The car was lurching, and the grasp was imperfect. The man seemed only half satisfied. Shorty saw this, and with his customary impudence determined to put the onus of recognition on the other side. He drew his hand back as if disappointed, and turned a severe look upon the other man.
"Where are you from?" asked the first-comer. Shorty curtly indicated the other side of the Ohio by a nod.
"Where are you goin'?"
Shorty's face put on a severe look, as if his questioner was too inquisitive. "Jest up here to 'tend to some bizness," he answered briefly, and turned away as if to close the conversation.
"Say, I've got a right to know something about you," said the first new- comer. "I'm Captain of this District, and have general charge o' things here, and men passin' through."
"All right," answered Shorty. "Have general charge. I don't know you, and I have bizness with men who roost a good deal higher'n you do."
He put his hands to his breast, as if assuring himself of the presence of important papers, and pulled out a little ways the official-looking envelope which contained his transportation and passes. This had its effect. The "Captain" weakened. "Are you from the Southern army?" he asked in a tone of respect.
"Before I answer any o' your questions," said Shorty authoritatively, "prove to me who you are." "O, I kin do that quick enough," said the "Captain" eagerly, displaying on his vest the silver star, which was the badge of his rank, and his floridly printed commission and a badly- thumb-marked copy of the ritual of the Knights of the Golden Circle.
"So far, so good," said Shorty. "Now give me the grip."
Shorty, by watching the motions of the other's hand, was skillful enough to catch on to the grip this time, and get it exactly. He expressed himself satisfied, and as the car lay on the siding waiting for another train to arrive and pass he favored his two companions with one of his finest fictions about his home in Tennessee, his service in the rebel army, the number of Yankee Abolitionists he had slain with his own hand, and his present mission with important communications to those "friends of the South in Illinois" who were organizing a movement to stop the bloody and brutal war upon his beloved Southland.
His volubility excited that of the "Captain," who related how he had been doing a prosperous business running a bar on a Lower Mississippi River boat, until Abolition fanaticism brought on the war; that he had then started a "grocery" in Jeffersonville, which the Provost-Marshal had wickedly suppressed, and now he was joining with others of his oppressed and patriotic fellow-citizens to stop the cruel and unnatural struggle against their brethren of the South.
"And we shall do it," he said warmly, bringing out the savage-looking dirk, throwing it open with a deft movement of his wrist, and shaving off a huge chew of tobacco. "We have a hundred thousand drilled and armed men here in the State of Injianny, jest waitin' the word, to throw off the shackles of tyranny and destroy the tyrants.
"There's another hundred thousand in Illinois and like numbers in other States. And they'll fight, too. They'll fight to the death, and every one of them is good for' at least three of the usurper Lincoln's minions. I'd like nothing better than to get a good opportunity at three or four o' 'em, armed with nothin' more'n this knife. I'd like nothin' better than the chance to sock it into their black hearts. 'Twouldn't be the first time, nuther. The catfish around Jeffersonville could tell some stories if they could talk, about the Lincoln hounds I've fed to 'em. I only want a good chance at 'em agin. I may go, but I'll take several of 'em with me. I'll die in my tracks afore I'll stand this any longer. I hate everything that wears blue worse'n I do a mad-dog."
"And I promise you," said Shorty solemnly, "that you shall have all the chance you want sooner'n you think for. I know a great deal more'n I dare tell you now, but things is workin' to a head mighty fast, and you'll hear something drop before the next change o' the moon. You kin jest bet your shirt on that."
The day was passing, and as the evening approached the train was running through a wilder, heavily-wooded country. Shorty's companions took their seats on the opposite side of the car and peered anxiously out of the window to recognize features of the darkening landscape. They were evidently getting near their destination.
Shorty overheard the "Captain" say to his partner:
"The train'll stop for water in the middle of a big beech woods. We'll get off there and take a path that leads right to the lodge."
"How far'll we have to tote these heavy carpetbags?" grumbled the other.
Shorty slipped his hand into his pocket, grasped his revolvers and eased them around so that he could be certain to draw them when he wanted to. He was determined that those men should not leave the train before the stopping place arranged for his fellow-soldiers. He felt confident of being able to handle the two, but did not know how many confederates might be in waiting for them.
"I'll go it if there's a million of 'em," said he to himself. "I'll save these two fellers anyway, if there's any good in 45-caliber bullets in their carcasses. I'm jest achin' to put a half-ounce o' lead jest where that old scoundrel hatches his devilment."
The engine whistled long and shrilly.
"That's the pumpin'-station," said the "Captain," rising and laying hold of the handles of the carpetbag.
"Drop that. You can't leave this car till I give the word," said Shorty, rising as the train stopped, and putting himself in the door.
"Can't, eh?" said the "Captain," with a look of rage as he comprehended the situation. His dirk came out and opened with a wicked snap. "I'll cut your black heart out, you infernal spy."
'how Do You Like the Looks of That, Old Butternut 169
"You will, eh?" sneered Shorty, covering him with a heavy Remington. "How'd you like the looks o' that, old butternut? Your murderin' dirk aint deuce high. Move a step, and you'll know how it feels to have daylight through you."
The "Captain" smashed the window with a backward blow of his fist, thrust his head out and yelled the rallying-cry of the Knights:
"Asa! Asa!"
The sound of rushing feet was heard, and a man armed with a shot-gun came into the plane of light from the open caboose door. Shorty was on the lookout for him, and as he appeared, shouted;
"Halt, there! Drop that gun. If you move I'll kill this whelp here and then you."
"Do as he says, Stallins," groaned the frightened "Captain." "He's got the drop on me. Drop your gun, but holler to the boys in the front car to come out."
To Shorty's amazement a score of men came rushing back from the car next ahead of the caboose. They had, by a preconcerted arrangement, been jumping on the train ever since it grew dark, and collected in that car. Some of them had guns, but the most appeared unarmed.
"Well, I have stirred up a yaller-jacket's nest for sure," thought Shorty, rather tickled at the odds which were arrayed against him. "But I believe I kin handle 'em until either the train pulls out or the boys hear the ruction and come to my help."
Then he called out sternly as he raised the revolver in his left hand:
"I'll shoot the first man that attempts to come on this car, and I'll kill your Captain, that I've got covered, dead. You man with that shot- gun, p'int it straight up in the air or I'll drop you in your tracks. Now fire off both barrels."
It seemed to every man in the gang that Shorty's left-hand revolver was pointing straight at him. The man with the shot-gun was more than certain of this, and he at once complied with the order.
There was a whistle, followed by a rush of men from a line further out, and every man of those around Shorty was either knocked down or rudely punched with a musket-barrel in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow's squad.
"What in the world made you so long comin'?" asked Shorty, after all the prisoners had been secured. "Was you asleep?"
"No," answered the Lieutenant. "This is the place where we intended to get off. We were quietly getting out so as to attract no notice when you started your circus. I saw you were doing well, hiving those fellows together, so I let you go ahead, while I slipped the boys around to gather them all in. Pretty neat job for a starter, wasn't it?"
XIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING BREAKING UP A DEN OF COPPERHEADS
"COME, hustle these prisoners back into the car in which we were," commanded the Lieutenant. "We'll leave it on the switch with a guard. Lock it up carefully, and one man'll be enough to guard it until we get back. Make haste, for we've no time to lose. Shorty."
"Corpril Elliott," Shorty corrected him, mindful of the presence of Sergeant Bob Ramsey.
"Yes; excuse me. Corporal Elliott, while we are attending to the prisoners you go on ahead and reconnoiter. You need not stop unless you see fit until you are clear into the lodge. Give one low whistle if you want us to stop, two to come ahead and three to go back."
It was a moonless night, and the broom-like tops of the close-growing beeches made a dense darkness, into which Shorty plunged, but he could readily make out a well-beaten path, which he followed. Occasionally he could make out dark figures moving just ahead of him or crossing the path.
"Goin' to be a full attendance at the services this evenin'," he muttered to himself. "But the more the merrier. It'll insure a goodly number at the mourner's bench when we make the call for the unconverted."
Big and lumbering as Shorty sometimes seemed in his careless hours, no wildcat gliding through the brush was more noiseless-footed than he now. He kept on the darker side of the path, but not a twig seemed to crack or a leaf rustle under his heavy brogans. Twice he heard lumbering steps in his rear, and he slipped behind the big trunk of a tree, and saw the men pass almost within arm's length, but without a suspicion of his presence.
"Well, for men workin' a dark-lantern job this is about the logiest crowd I ever struck," he said rather disgustedly. "An elephant'd have to step on 'em before they'd know he was around. They ain't hardly good fun."
Presently he heard some rustling over to his right and caught the low murmur of a voice. He cautiously made his way in that direction until he made an opening, with a number of men sitting on a log, while others were standing, leaning on their guns.
"Probably a caucus outside to set up the pins before goin' into the full meetin'," he said to himself. "As I always like to be with the winnin' side, I guess I'll jest jine 'em."
He advanced boldly into the opening. At the sound of his approach the men looked up, and one of those leaning on his gun picked it up and came toward him.
"You are out late," he whispered, when within speaking distance.
"Yes," answered Shorty. "And I was out late last night."
"Did you see a star?"
"I did."
"What star was it?"
"It was the Star of Bethlehem."
The first speaker had seemed to start at the sound of Shorty's voice, but he recovered himself, and saying, "You're right, my brother," put out his hand for the grip.
"'Taint right, neither," hissed Shorty. "Si Klegg, what are you doin' here?"
"Shorty!" ejaculated Si, joyfully, but still in a whisper. "I thought I knowed your voice. Where in the world did you come from?"
"I'm here on business," answered Shorty. "I came up from Headquarters at Jeffersonville. What brung you here?"
"O," said Si, "we've bin hearin' about this Copperhead lodge for some time, and some of us boys who's home on furlough thought that we'd come down here with the Deputy Provo and bust it up. We've bin plannin' it a week or two. All these that you see, there are soldiers. I've 15, includin' myself."
The boys hastily conferred together as to the plan of operations, and one man was hurried back to inform Lieut. Bigelow of the presence of the other squad.
"You seem to know most about this affair. Shorty," said Si. "You take command and make arrangements."
"Not for a minute. Si," protested Shorty. "You rank me and you must command, and I want you to hold your own over Bob Ramsey, who will try to rank you. Bob's a good boy, but he's rather too much stuck on his stripes."
It was finally arranged that Si should move his squad out to near the edge of the path and wait for Lieut. Bigelow to come up, while Shorty should go forward and reconnoiter.
Shorty walked along the path toward the lodge. Suddenly the large figure of a man loomed up before him, standing motionless, on guard, in the road.
"You are out late, my friend," said he.
"Yes," answered Shorty.
"Did you see a star?"
"Yes."
"What was it?"
"The Star of Bethlehem."
"You are right, my brother," said the man, extending his hand for the grip.
"This rotten star-and-brother rigmarole's making me sick," muttered Shorty, with a hasty glance to see that the man was alone, and grasping his hand with a grip of iron, while with his left he clutched the sentry's throat. Before the man could utter a groan he wrenched him around and started him back for Si. Arriving there he flung him under the trees, saying in a loud whisper:
"First sucker o' this Spring's run. String him. Si."
Lieut. Bigelow had come up in the meanwhile with the other squad, and they all moved cautiously forward to where they could get a dim sight of the lodge through the intervals between the trees. For a log house it was quite a large building, and stood in the center of a small clearing which had been made to furnish logs for its erection. Faint gleams of light came through the badly-chinked walls, and the hum of voices showed that there was a large crowd gathered inside.
"There's likely to be from 100 to 150 in there," said the Lieutenant, after a moment's consideration. "We've got 27 or 28. We'll jump them, though, if they're a thousand. Corporal Elliott, you go forward and make your way inside, if you can, and see what they are doing. If you can get inside, stay 10 or 15 minutes, and come out and report. If you can't get out, or you think they are ripe for jumping, whistle, and we'll pile in. Sergeant Klegg, you hold your squad together and move down as near the door as you can without being seen and be ready for a rush. Find a rail or a log to smash the door in if they try to hold it against us. Sergeant Ramsey, deploy your men quietly around to the rear there to cut off retreat, but be ready to rally again and help Sergeant Klegg out if he strikes a big snag. You make the circuit of the house and post yourself where you can see what's going on, and signal your men. Everybody keep under the shadow of the trees and make no noise. Go on to the house, Corporal."
Shorty left the cover of the trees and walked directly toward the front door. No one appeared or halted him until he pushed the front door open. Then a man who seemed more intent on what was going on inside than the new arrival, bent his head over to catch the farrago about the star, and put out his hand for the grip.
"Come on in, but don't make a noise," he whispered. "They're givin' the obligation, and I want to hear it."
Shorty stood beside him for a moment, and then watched his opportunity, and pressed by him, to where he could see into the room. It was entirely dark except for the light of a single candle, shaded so that its rays fell upon a rude altar in the center of the room, draped with a rebel flag. Upon this lay a naked sword, skull and cross-bones. Behind the altar stood a masked man, draped in a long shroud, who was mouthing in a sepulchral tone the obligation to several men kneeling in front of the altar. The dim light faintly revealed other masked and shrouded figures stationed at various places about the room and looming above the seated audience.
"You solemnly swear," droned the chief actor, "to resist to the death every attempt to place the nigger above the white man and destroy the Government of our fathers."
"We do," responded those kneeling at the altar.
"Let it be so recorded," said a sepulchral voice from the other extremity of the room. A gong sounded dismally and a glare of lurid red light filled the room.
"Regler Sons o' Malty biziniss, like I seen in St. Looyey," commented Shorty to himself. "Masks, shrouds, red fire and gong, all the same. But where've I heard that croakin' voice before?"
"You solemnly promise and swear," resumed the sepulchral tones of the chief actor, "to do all in your power to restore the Constitution and laws of this country to what were established by the fathers and resist the efforts of nigger-loving Abolitionists and evil-minded fanatics to subvert them."
"We do," responded the kneeling men.
Again the grewsome gong sounded, the red fire glared forth and the hollow voice announced that it was so recorded.
"I'll bet six bits to a picayune," said Shorty to himself, "that I know the rooster who's doin' them high priest antics. Where'd I hear his voice before?"
"And, finally, brethren," resumed the chief actor, "do you solemnly promise and swear to cheerfully obey all orders given you by officers regularly appointed over you according to the rules and regulations of this great order and military discipline?"
There was a little hesitation about this, but the kneeling ones were nudged and whispered to, and finally responded:
"We do."
Again it was funereally announced to the accompaniment of flashes of red fire and the gong that it was duly recorded.
"Great Jehosephat, if it ain't old Billings himself that's doin' that heavy tragedy act," said Shorty, slapping himself on the thigh. "The old dregs o' the bottomless pit! Is there any deviltry that he won't git into?"
His decision was confirmed a minute or two later, when, after some more fanfarronade the initiation ended, the officers removed their masks and shrouds, and the candles in the sconces around the room were relighted. Billings took his seat on the platform at the end of the room farthest from the door, picked up the gavel and rapped for order.
"Now, brethren," said he, "having witnessed the solemn initiation of several brave, true men into our rapidly-swelling ranks and welcomed them as real patriots who have united with us to resist to the bitter end the cruel tyrannies of the Abolition despot at Washington—the vulgar railsplitter of the Sangamon, who is filling this once happy land with the graves of his victims, we will proceed to the regular business for which we have assembled. I regret that our gallant Captain has not yet arrived with the supply of arms and ammunition that he went to Jeffersonville to secure. I thought I heard the whistle of the train some time ago, and have been expecting him every minute. He may be here yet."
"Not if that guard at the switch 'tends to his little business, he won't," Shorty chuckled to himself.
"When he gets here," continued Billings, "we shall have enough weapons to finish our outfit, and give every member, including them initiated tonight, a good, serviceable arm, as effective as any in the hands of our enemies. We shall then be in shape to carry out the several projects which we have before discussed and planned. We shall be ready to strike at any moment. When we do strike success is sure. The Southern armies, which have so long bravely battled for the Constitution and the laws and white men's rights, are again advancing from every point. Every mail brings me glad good news of the organization of our brave friends throughout this State and Illinois. They're impatient to begin. The first shot fired will be the signal for an uprising that'll sweep over the land like a prairie fire and—"
He stopped abruptly, contracted his brows, and gazed fixedly at Shorty.
"Brother Walker," said Billings, "there's a tall man settin' close by the door that I seem to've seen before, and yit I don't exactly recognize. Please hold that candle nigh his face till I can see it more plainly."
Shorty happened to be looking at another man that minute, and did not at first catch the drift of Billings's remarks. When he did, he hesitated an instant whether to whistle or try to get out. Before he could decide, Eph Glick, whom he had raided at Jeffersonville, struck him a heavy blow on the side of his head and yelled:
"He's a traitor! He's a spy! Kill the infernal, egg-suckin' hound!"
There was a rush of infuriated men, which carried Shorty over and made him the object of a storm of blows and kicks. So many piled on him at once that they struck and kicked one another in their confusion. The door was torn out, and its pieces fell with the tumble of cursing, striking, kicking men that rolled outside.
Si rushed forward with his squad, and in an instant they were knocking right and left with their gun-barrels. So many fell on top of Shorty that he was unable to rise and extricate himself.
Not exactly comprehending what was going on, but thinking that the time for them to act had come, the four boys to whom Si had given the duty of making the rush with the log to break down the door, came bolting up, shouting to their comrades:
"Open out, there, for us."
'the Prisoners Had Too Much Solicitude About Their Garments to Think of Anything Else.' 185
Their battering-ram cleaned off the rest of those still pommeling Shorty, and drove back those who were swarming in the door.
Shorty sprang up and gave a rib-breaking kick to the prostrate Eph Glick.
The crowd inside at first recoiled at the sight of the soldiers, but, frightened for his own safety, Billings shouted, as he sheltered himself behind the altar:
"Don't give way, men. There's only a few o' them. Draw your revolvers and shoot down the scum. Drive 'em away."
A score of shots were fired in obedience, but Si, making his voice ring above the noise, called out:
"Stop that firing, or I'll kill every man in the house. If there's another shot fired we'll open on you and keep it up till you're every one dead. Surrender at once!"
"Go at 'em with the bayonet, Si," yelled Shorty. "I'm goin' around to ketch old Billings. He's in there, and'll try to sneak out the back way."
As Shorty ran around the corner he came face-to-face with a stalwart Irishman, one of the pluckiest of the squad brought from Jeffersonville. His face was drawn and white with fright, and he fumbled at his beads.
"O, Corpril," he said, with chattering teeth, "Oi've jist sane the very divil himself, so Oi have. Oi started to run up t' the house whin the ruction begun, when suddintly the ground opened up at me very fate, an' out kim a ghost, tin fate hoigh, wid oyes av foire, and brathing flames, an' he shtarted for me, an' oi—"
"What damned nonsense is this, O'Brien?" asked Shorty angrily. "Are you drunk, or jest naturally addled? Come along with me and we'll—"
"Not for a thousand loives," groaned the Irishman. "Howly saints, fwhat is old Clootie after me for? Is it for atin' that little taste o' ham last Friday? Holy Mary, save me; there he is again!"
"Where, you flannel-mouthed Mick?" asked Shorty savagely. "Where do you see the devil?"
"There! There! That white thing. Don't you say it yersilf?" groaned the Irishman, dropping on his knees, and calling on all the saints.
"That white thing. That's only a sycamore stump, you superstitious bog- trotter," said Shorty, with angry contempt, as he bent his eyes on the white object. Then he added in the next breath:
"But blamed if that stump ain't walkin' off. Funny stump."
He gave a leap forward for closer investigation. At the crash of his footsteps the stump actually turned around and gave a sepulchral groan. Then, seeing that it was not a soldier pursuing, a very natural human voice proceeded from it.
"Is that you, Brother Welch? I thought at first it was a soldier. I motioned you when the trouble first begun to follow me through the underground passage. There was enough others there to make the fight, and it'd never do for us to be taken by the Lincolnites. We're too valuable to the cause just now, and, then, if the Lincolnites get hold of me they'll certainly make me a martyr. Come right over this way. We kin strike a path near here that'll take us right out."
"Great Jehosephat," said Shorty, "if it ain't old Billings, masqueradin' in his Sons o' Malty rig."
He made another leap or two, clapped his hand on Billings's shoulder, and shoved the muzzle of his revolver against the mask and demanded:
"Halt and surrender, you barrel-headed, splayfooted son of a sardine. Come along with me, or I'll blow that whole earthquake rig offen you."
Shorty marched his prisoner back to the house, and as he neared it saw by the light of a fire O'Brien, who had apparently recovered from his fright, for he was having a lively bout with a large young fellow who was trying to make his escape. It seemed an even thing for a minute or two, but the Irishman finally downed his antagonist by a heavy blow with his massive fist.
"Here, O'Brien," said Shorty, "I've ketched your devil and brung him back to you. When a boss shies at anything the best way's to lead him square up to it and let him smell it. So I want you to take charge o' this prisoner and hold him safe till the scrimmage is over."
O'Brien looked at the figure with rage and disgust. He gave Billings a savage clout with his open hand, saying:
"Ye imp o' the divil—ye unblest scab of an odmahoun. Oi'll brake ivery bone av yer body for goin' around by noights in thim wake-duds, scaring daysint folks out av their siven sinses."
The fighting had been quite a severe tussle for the soldiers. There had not been much shooting, but a great deal of clubbing with gun-barrels and sticks, which left a good many bloody heads and aching arms and shoulders. About half of those in the meeting had succeeded in getting away, but this still left some 75 prisoners in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow, and he was delighted with his success.
It was decided to hold all the prisoners in the lodge until morning, and two of the boys who had gotten pretty badly banged about the head were sent back to the railroad to relieve and assist the guard left there.
"I find about 10 or 15 birds in the flock," said the Deputy Provost, who was also Deputy Sheriff, when they looked over the prisoners in the morning, "that we have warrants and complaints for, for everything from plain assault and battery to horse-stealing. It would save the military much trouble and serve the ends of justice better if we could send them over to the County seat and put them in jail, where the civil authorities could get a whack at them. I'd go there myself if I could walk, but this bullet in my shin disables me."
"I'd like to do it," answered Lieut. Bigelow, "but I haven't the guard to spare. So many of my men got disabled that I won't have more than enough to guard the cars on the way back and keep these whelps from jumping the train or being rescued by their friends when we stop at the stations. The news of this affair is all over the country by this time, and their friends will all be out."
"How fur is it to the County seat?" asked Shorty.
"About 15 miles," answered the Deputy Provost.
"Me and Si Klegg'll march 'em over there, and obligate ourselves not to lose a rooster of 'em," said Shorty.
"That'll be a pretty big contract," said the Lieutenant doubtfully.
"All right. We're big enough for it. We'll take every one of 'em in if we have to haul some of 'em feet foremost in a wagon."
"It'll be a great help in many ways," considered Lieut. Bigelow. "The crowd'll be looking for us at the stations and not think of these others. Those are two very solid men, and will do just what they promise. I think I'll let them try it. It would be well for you to tell those men that any monkey business with them will be unhealthy. They'd better trust to getting away from the grand jury than from them."
But as the Deputy Provost went over them more carefully he found more that were "wanted" by the civil authorities, and presently had selected 25 very evil-looking fellows, whose arrest would have been justified on general appearances.
"Haint we bit off more'n we kin chaw. Shorty?" asked Si, as he looked over the increasing gang. "Hadn't we better ask for some help?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Shorty, confidently. "That'll look like weakenin' to the Lieutenant and the Provo. We kin manage this gang, or we'll leave 'em dead in the brush."
"All right," assented Si, who had as little taste as his partner for seeming to weaken. "Here goes for a fight or a foot-race."
While the Deputy was making out a list of the men and writing a note to the Sheriff, Shorty went through the gang and searched each man for arms. Then he took out his knife and carefully cut the suspender buttons from every one of their pantaloons.
"Now we've got 'em, Si," he said gleefully, as he returned to his partner's side, with his hand full of buttons. "They'll have to use both hands to hold their britches on, so they kin neither run nor fight. They'll be as peaceable as lambs."
"Shorty," said Si, in tones of fervent admiration, "I wuz afeared that crack you got on your head softened your brains. But now I see it made you brighter'n ever. You'll be wearin' a General's stars before this war is over."
"Bob Ramsey was a-blowin' about knowin' how to handle men," answered Shorty. "I'm just goin' to bring him over here and show him this trick that he never dreamed of."
After he had gloated over Sergeant Ramsey, Shorty got his men into the road ready to start. Si placed himself in front of the squad and deliberately loaded his musket in their sight. Shorty took his place in the rear, and gave out:
"Now, you roosters, you see I've two revolvers, and I'm a dead shot with either hand. I'm good for 12 of you at the first jump and my partner kin 'tend to the rest. Now, if I see a man so much as make a motion toward the side o' the road I'll drop him. Give the command. Sergeant Klegg."
"Forward—march!" ordered Si.
It was as Shorty predicted. The prisoners had entirely too much solicitude about their garments to think of anything else, and the march was made without incident. Late in the afternoon they reached the County seat, and marched directly for the public square, in which the jail was situated. There were a few people on the streets, who gathered on the sidewalks to watch the queer procession. Shorty, with both hands on his revolvers, had his eyes fixed on the squad, apprehensive of an attempt to bolt and mix with the crowd. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but was conscious that they were passing a corner on which stood some ladies. Then he heard a voice which set his heart to throbbing call out:
"Hello, Si Klegg! Si Klegg! Look this way. Where'd you come from?"
"Great Jehosephat! Maria!" said Shorty to himself. But he dared not take his eyes a moment from the squad to look toward her.
XIV. GUARDING THE KNIGHTS SI AND SHORTY STAND OFF A MOB AT THE JAIL
HAVING seen their prisoners safely behind the bars, Si and Shorty breathed more freely than they had since starting out in the morning, and Si remarked, as he folded up the receipt for them and placed it in his pocket-book:
"That drove's safely marketed, without the loss of a runaway or a played-out. Purty good job o' drovin', that. Pap couldn't do better'n that with his hogs. I'm hungrier'n a wolf. So must you be, Shorty. Le's hunt up Maria, and she'll take us where we kin git a square meal. Then we kin talk. I've got a hundred questions I want to ask you, but ain't goin' to do it on an empty gizzard. Come on."
Shorty had dropped on to a bench, and fixed his eyes on the stone wall opposite, as if desperately striving to read there some hint of extrication from his perplexities. The thought of encountering Maria's bright eyes, and seeing there even more than her sharp tongue would express, numbed his heart.
"Yit, how kin I git away from Si, now?" he murmured to himself. "And yit I'm so dead hungry to see her again that I'd be willin' to be a'most skinned alive to do it. Was ever anybody else so big a fool about a girl? I've plagued other fellers, and now I've got it worse'n anybody else. It's a judgment on me. But, then, nobody else ever seen such a girl as that. There's some sense in bein' a fool about her."
"Come on, Shorty," called Si from the door. "What are you dreamin' on? Are you too tired to move? Come on. We'll have a good wash, that'll take away some of the tiredness, then a big dinner, and a good bed tonight. Tomorrer mornin' we'll be as good as new."
"I think I'd better git right on the next train and go back to Jeffersonvillie," murmured Shorty, faintly struggling with himself. "They may need me there."
"Nonsense!" answered Si. "We've done enough for one day. I've bin up for two nights now, and am goin' to have a rest. Let some o' the other fellers have a show for their money. We haint got to fight this whole war all by ourselves."
"No, Si," said Shorty, summoning all his resolution; "I'm goin' back on the next train. I must git back to the company. They'll—"
"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," said Si impatiently. "What's eatin' you? What'd you skip out from our house for? What'd you mean—"
He was broken in upon by Maria's voice as she came in at the head of a bevy of other girls:
"Si Klegg, ain't you ever comin' out? What's akeepin' you? We're tired waitin' for you, and w're comin' right in. What're you doin' to them ragamuffins that you've bin gatherin' up? Tryin' to patch 'em up into decent-lookin' men? Think it'll be like mendin' a brush-fence—makin' bad worse. Where on earth did you gather up sich a gang o' scare-crows? I wouldn't waste my days and nights pickin' up sich runts as them. When I go manhuntin' I'll gether something that's worth while."
Every bright sally of Maria was punctuated with shrieks of laughter from the girls accompanying her. Led by her, they swarmed into the dull, bare room, filling it with the brightness of their youthful presence, their laughter, and their chirruping comments on everything they saw. The jail was a place of deep mystery to them, and it was a daring lark for them to venture in even to the outside rooms.
"The girls dared me to bring 'em in," Maria explained to Si, "and I never won't take no dare from anyone. Si, ain't you goin' to kiss your sister? You don't act a bit glad to see me. Now, if it was Annabel—"
"Why, Maria," said Si, kissing her to stop her mouth, "I wasn't expectin' to see you. What in the world are you doin' over here?"
"Why, your Cousin Marthy, here, is goin' to be married Thursday to her beau, who's got 10 days' leave to come home for that purpose. The thing's bin hurried up, because he got afeared. He heard that Marthy was flyin' around to singin' school and sociables with some other fellers that's home on furlough. So he just brung things to a head, and I rushed over here to help Marthy git ready, and stand by her in the tryin' hour. Why, here's Mr. Corporil Elliott, that I hain't spoken to yit. Well, Mr. Skip-and-away, how d' you do? Girls, come up here and see a man who thought mother's cookin' was not good enough for him. He got homesick for army rations, and run off without so much as sayin' good-by, to git somethin' to eat that he'd really enjoy."
Her merry laugh filled the room, and rang even into the dark cells inside. Shorty shambled to his feet, pulled off his hat, and stood with downcast eyes and burning face. He had never encountered anything so beautiful and so terrifying.
Maria was certainly fair to look upon. A buxom, rosy-cheeked lass, something above the average hight of girls, and showing the Klegg blood in her broad chest and heavy, full curves. She was dressed in the hollyhock fashion of country girls of those days, with an exuberance of bright colors, but which Shorty thought the hight of refined fashion. He actually trembled at what the next words would be from those full, red lips, that never seemed to open except in raillery and mocking.
"Well, ain't you goin' to shake hands with me? What are you mad about?"
"Mad? Me mad? What in the world've I to be mad about?" thought Shorty, as he changed his hat to his left hand, and put forth shamedly a huge paw, garnished with red hair and the dust of the march. It seemed so unfit to be touched by her white, plump hand. She gave him a hearty grasp, which reassured him a little, for there was nothing in it, at least, of the derision which seemed to ring in every note of her voice and laughter.
"Girls," she called, "come up and be introduced. This is Mr. Corpril Elliott, Si's best friend and partner. I call him Mr. Fly-by-night, because he got his dander up about something or nothin', and skipped out one night without so much's sayin'—"
"O, Maria, come off. Cheese it. Dry up," said Si impatiently. "Take us somewhere where we kin git somethin' to eat. Your tongue's hung in the middle, and when you start to talkin' you forgit everything else. I'm hungrier'n a bear, and so's Shorty."
An impulse of anger flamed up in Shorty's heart. How dared Si speak that way to such a peerless creature? How could he talk to her as if she were some ordinary girl?
"O, of course, you're hungry," Maria answered. "Never knowed you when you wasn't. You're worse'n a Shanghai chicken—eat all day and be hungry at night. But I expect you are really hungry this time. Come on. We'll go right up to Cousin Marthy's. I sent word that you was in town, and they're gittin' ready for you. I seen a dray-load o' provisions start up that way. Come on, girls. Cousin Marthy, bein's you're engaged and Si's engaged, you kin walk with him. The rest o' you fall in behind, and I'll bring up the rear, as Si'd say, with Mr. Fly-by-night, and hold on to him so that he sha'n't skip again."
"Me run away," thought Shorty, as they walked along. "Hosses couldn't drag me away. I only hope that house is 10 miles off."
Unfortunately for his cause he could not say nor hint any such a thing, but walked along in dogged silence. The sky was overcast and cheerless, and a chill wind blew, but Shorty never knew such a radiant hour.
"Well, why don't you say something? What's become o' your tongue?" began Maria banteringly.
"Have you bit it off, or did some girl, that you bolted off in such a hurry to see, drain you so dry o' talk that you haint got a word left? Who is she? What does she look like? What made you in sich a dreadful hurry to see her? You didn't go clear up to Bad Ax, did you, and kill that old widower?"
"Maria," called out Si, "if you don't stop plaguin' Shorty I'll come back there and wring your neck. You kin make the worst nuisance o' yourself o' any girl that ever lived. Here, you go up there and walk with Cousin Marthy. I'll walk with Shorty. I've got something I want to say to him."
With that he crowded in between Maria and Shorty and gave his sister a shove to send her forward. Shorty flared up at the interference. Acute as his suffering was under Maria's tongue, he would rather endure it than not have her with him. Anyhow, it was a matter between him and her, with which Si had no business.
"You oughtn't to jaw your sister that way, Si," he remonstrated energetically. "I think it's shameful. I wouldn't talk that way to any woman, especially sich a one as your sister."
"Whose sister is she, anyway?" snapped Si, who was as irritable as a hungry and tired man gets. "You 'tend to your sisters and I'll 'tend to mine. I'm helpin' you. You don't know Maria. She's one o' the best girls in the world, but she's got a doublegeared, self-actin' tongue that's sharper'n a briar. She winds it up Sundays and lets it run all week. I've got to comb her down every little while. She's a filly you can't manage with a snaffle. Let her git the start and you'd better be dead. The boys in our neighborhood's afeared to say their soul's their own when she gits a-goin'. You 'tend to the other girls and leave me to 'tend to her. She's my sister—nobody else's."
Have Come, Sir, in the Name of The People Of Indiana To Demand the Release of Those Men. 199
Shorty fell back a little and walked sullenly along. The people at the house were expecting them, and had a bountiful supper prepared. A good, sousing wash in the family lavatory in the entry, plentifully supplied with clear water, soap, tin basins and clean roller towels, helped much to restore the boys' self-respect and good humor. When they were seated at the table Maria, as the particular friend of the family, assisted as hostess, and paid especial attention to supplying Shorty's extensive wants, and by her assiduous thoughtfulness strengthened her chains upon him and soothed the hurts her tongue had made. Yet he could not see her whisper to one of the other girls, and hear the responsive giggle, but he thought with flushed face that it concerned the Bad Ax incident. But Maria was not doing any such covert work. She was, above everything, bold and outspoken.
"You girls that want a soldier-beau," she took opportunity to remark at a little pause in the feast, "kin jest set your caps for Mr. Corpril Elliott there. He's in the market. He had a girl up in Bad Ax, Wis., but she went back on him, and married a stay-at-home widower, who's in the lumber business."
There was a general giggle, and a chorus of exclamations at such unpatriotic and unwomanly perfidy. Shorty's appetite fled.
"Maria," thundered Si, "I'll make you pay for this when I git you alone."
"Yes," continued the incorrigible tease; "and they say the best time to ketch a widder is while her eyes is wet. Transplantin's best in wet weather, and the best time to ketch a feller's jest when he's bin jilted."
Si sprang from the table, as if he would catch Maria and slap her. She laughingly threatened him with a big fork in her hand. They happened to look toward Shorty. He had risen from the table, with the sweat pouring from his burning face. He fumbled in his breast for his silk handkerchief. As he pulled it out there came with it the piece of Maria's dress, which Shorty had carefully treasured. It fell to the floor. Shorty saw it, and forgetful of all else, stooped over, picked it up, carefully brushed the dust from it, refolded it and put if back in his pocket. Maria's face changed instantly from laughing raillery, and she made a quick movement to place herself where she would hide from the rest what he was doing.
There was a rap at the door and the Sheriff of the County entered.
"Sorry to disturb you at supper," he said. "But there's some hint of trouble, and I'd like to have you stand by to help me if it comes. The news has gone all over the country of the haul you brung into the' jail this afternoon, and they say their friends are gatherin' for a rescue. So many o' the right kind o' the boys is away in the army that I hardly know where to look for help. I'm sending word around to all I kin reach. There's several o' the boys that're home gittin' well o' wounds that'll be glad to help. I'm sendin' buggies for 'em. They can't walk, but they kin stand up and shoot. I'd like to have you come down to the jail as soon's you git through your supper. And, Serg't Klegg, will you take command? I ain't much on the military, but I'll stay with you and obey orders."
"All right. Sheriff; we'll be right down," responded Si with alacrity. "Git together a few of the boys, and we'll stand off the Knights. There won't be much trouble, I think."
The prospect of a fight transformed Shorty. His shamefacedness vanished instantly, and he straightened up to his full hight with his eyes shining.
"I don't think there's need o' disturbin' the other boys. Sheriff," he said. "I guess me and Si'll be able to stand off any crowd that they're likely to run up aginst us."
"Don't know about that," said the Sheriff doubtfully. "They've bin gittin' sassier and sassier lately, and've showed more willingness to fight. They've put up several very nasty little shindies at one place or another. Out at Charleston, Ill., they killed the Sheriff and a lot o' soldiers right in the Courthouse yard in broad daylight. I believe they've got rebels for officers. We mustn't take no chances."
"Let 'em come on," said Si. "We've run up aginst rebels before. We'll be down to the jail in a few minutes. Sheriff."
The Sheriff's words had banished the ready laughter from the girls' lips, and taken away their appetites, but seemed to have sharpened those of Si and Shorty.
"Here, Maria," called out Si, as he resumed his place at the table with Shorty, while the girls grouped together and whispered anxiously, "bring us in some more o' them slapjacks. We may have to be up all night, and want somethin' that'll stay by us."
"Yes," echoed Shorty, speaking for the first time since he had come into the house; "I feel as if I'd like to begin all over agin."
"I wish you could begin all over agin," said Maria in a tone very different from her former one. "I'd like to cook another supper for you. I wish I could do something to help. Can't I go with you and do something—load guns, or something? I've read about women doin' somethin' o' that kind in the Injun fightin'."
"If you could git 'em within range o' your tongue, Maria," said Si merrily, "you'd scatter, 'em in short order. No; you stay here, and say your prayers, and go to bed like a good girl, and don't worry about us. We'll come out all right. It's the other fellers' womenfolks that've cause to worry. Let them stay up and walk the floor."
As the boys walked down to the jail they saw in the darkness squads of men moving around in a portentious way. At the jail were the Sheriff, wearing an anxious look, two or three citizens, and several soldiers, some with their arms in slings, others on crutches.
"I'm so glad you've come," said the Sheriff. "Things is beginnin' to look very ugly outside. They've got the whole country stirred up, and men are coming in on every road. You take command, Sergeant Klegg. I've bin waitin' for you, so's I could drive over to the station and send a dispatch to the Governor. The station's about a mile from here, but I'll be back as soon as my horse'll bring me. I didn't want to send the dispatch till I was sure there was need of it, for I don't want to bring soldiers here for nothin'."
The wheels of the Sheriff's buggy rattled over the graveled road, and a minute later there was a knock at the outside door. Si opened it and saw there a young man with a smoothly-shaven face, a shock of rumpled hair and wearing a silk hat, a black frockcoat and seedy vest and pantaloons. Si at once recognized him as a lawyer of the place.
"Who's in charge here?" he asked.
"I am, for the present," said Si.
"There it is," said he, in a loud voice, that others might hear; "a military guard over citizens arrested without warrant of law. I have come, sir, in the name of the people of Indiana, to demand the immediate release of those men."
"You kin go, sir, and report to them people that it won't be did," answered Si firmly.
"But they've been arrested without due process of law. They've been arrested in violation of the Constitution and laws of the State of Indiana, which provide—"
"I ain't here to run no debatin' society," Si interrupted, "but to obey my orders, which is to hold these men safe and secure till otherwise ordered."
"I give you fair warning that you will save bloodshed by releasing the men peaceably. We don't want to shed blood, but—"
"We'll take care o' the bloodshed," said Si, nonchalantly. "We're in that business. We git $13 a month for it."
"Do you defy the sovereign people of Indiana, you military autocrat?" said the lawyer.
"Look here, mister," said Shorty, striding forward. "Don't you call my pardner no names, especially none like that. If you want a fight we're here to accommodate you till you git plum-full of it. But you musn't call no sich names as that, or I'll knock your head off."
"Whose head'll you knock off?" said a burly man, thrusting himself in front of the lawyer, with his fist doubled.
"Yours, for example," promptly responded Shorty, sending out his mighty right against the man's head.
"Don't be a fool, Markham," said the lawyer, catching the man and pushing him back into the crowd behind. "Now, sir, Sergeant, or Captain, or Colonel, whatever you may call yourself, for I despise military titles, and don't pretend to know them, I again demand the release of those men. You'll be foolish to attempt to resist, for we've men enough to tear you limb from limb, and jerk down the jail over your heads. Look out for yourself. You can see that the courtyard is full of men. They are determined—desperate, for they have groaned under the iron heel of tyranny."
"O, cheese that stump-speech," said Si, weariedly. "'Taint in our enlistment papers to have to listen to 'em. You've bin warnin', now I'll do a little. I'll shoot the first man that attempts to enter this jail till the Sheriff gits back. If you begin any shootin' we'll begin right into your crowd, and we'll make you sick. There's some warnin' that means somethin'."
"Your blood be on your own heads, then, you brass-button despots," said the lawyer, retiring into the darkness and the crowd. He seemed to give a signal, for a rocket shot up into the air, followed by wild yells from the mob. The large wooden stable in the Courthouse yard burst into flames, and the prisoners inside yelled viciously in response. There was a fusillade of shots, apparently excited and aimless, for none of them struck near.
"Don't fire, boys," said Si, walking around among his guards, "until there is some reason for it. They'll probably try to make a rush and batter down the jail door. We'll watch for that."
The glare of the burning building showed them preparing for that move. A gang had torn off the heavy rail from the hitching-post on the outside of the square, and were going to use it as a battering-ram. Then came another kind of yell from farther away, and suddenly the mob began running in wild confusion, while into the glare swept a line of soldiers, charging with fixed bayonets.
"A train came in while I was at the depot," the Sheriff explained, as he entered the office. "It had on it a regiment going home on veteran furlough. I asked the Major in command to come over and help us. He and his boys was only too glad for a chance to have some fun and stretch their legs. They came off the cars with a whoop as soon's they knowed what was wanted. Now, you boys kin go home and git a good night's sleep. I'll take these prisoners along with the regiment over to the next County seat, and keep 'em there till things cool down here. I'm awfully obliged to you."
"Don't mention it. Glad to do a little thing like that for you any time," responded Si, as he and Shorty shook hands with the Sheriff.
At the next corner, after leaving the Courthouse square, they met Maria and Martha.
"I just couldn't stay in the house while this was goin' on," Maria explained. "I had to come out and see. O, I'm so glad it's all over and you're not hurt."
She caught Shorty's arm with a fervor that made him thrill all over.
XV. OFF FOR THE FRONT SI AND SHORTY TAKE CHARGE OF A SQUAD OF RECRUITS
WHEN the boys came to breakfast the next morning, they found Maria with the hollyhock effulgence of garb of the day before changed to the usual prim simplicity of her housedress. This meant admiration striking Shorty still dumber. He was in that state of mind when every change in the young woman's appearance seemed a marvelous transformation and made her more captivating than before. He had thought her queenly dazzling in her highly-colored "go-to-meeting" plumage of the day before. She was now simply overpowering in her plain, close-fitting calico, that outlined her superb bust and curves, with her hair combed smoothly back from her bright, animated face. Shorty devoured her with his eyes—that is, when she was not looking in his direction. He would rather watch her than eat his breakfast, but when her glance turned toward him he would drop his eyes to his plate. This became plain to everybody, even Maria, but did not prevent her beginning to tease.
"What's the matter with you? Where's your appetite?" asked she. "You're clean off your feed. You must be in love. Nothin' else'd make a man go back on these slapjacks that Cousin Marthy made with her own hands, and she kin beat the County on slapjacks. Mebbe you're thinkin' o' your Bad Ax girl and her widower. Perk up. He may fall offen a saw-log and git drowned, and you git her yit. Never kin tell. Life's mighty uncertain, especially around saw-mills. When I marry a man he's got to give bonds not to have anything to do, in no way or shape, with saw-mills. I don't want to be a widder, or take care o' half a man for the rest o' my days. You've got a chance to git your girl yit. Mebbe she'll git tired o' him after he's bin run through the mill two or three times, and there's more o' him in the graveyard than there is walkin' to church with her. Cheer up."
Shorty tried to disprove the charge as to the subject of his thoughts by falling to furiously and with such precipitation that he spilt his coffee, upset the molasses-jug, and then collapsed in dismay at his clumsiness.
Maria did not go free herself. The other girls had not been blind to Shorty's condition of mind, and rather suspected that Maria was not wholly indifferent to him. When she came into the kitchen for another supply. Cousin Susie, younger sister of Martha, remarked:
"Maria, I've a notion to take your advice, and set my cap for Corpril Shorty. Do you know, I think he's very good lookin'. He's a little rough and clumsy, but a girl could take that out o' him. I believe I'll begin right away. You stay in here and bake and I'll wait on the table."
"Don't be a little goose, Susie," said Maria severely. "You're too young yit to think about beaux. You hain't got used to long dresses yit. You go practice on boys in roundabouts awhile. This is a full-grown man and a soldier. He hain't got no time to waste on schoolgirls."
"Ha, how you talk, Miss Jealousy," responded Susie. "How scared you are lest I cut you out. I've a great mind to do it, just to show you I kin. I'd like awfully to have a sweetheart down at the front, just to crow over the rest o' the girls. Here, you take the turner and let me carry that plate in."
"I'll do nothin' o' the kind," said Maria, decisively. "You look out for your cakes there. They're burnin' while you're gossipin'. That's my brother and his friend, and I hain't got but a short time to be with 'em. I may never see 'em agin, and I want to do all I kin for 'em while they're with me."
"Too bad about your brother," laughed Susie. "How lovin' and attentive all at once. I remember how you used to wig him without mercy at school, and try to make him go off and take me home, instid o' taggin' along after you, when that big-eyed school teacher that sung tenor'd be makin' sheep's eyes at you in school, and wantin' to walk home with you in the evenin'. I remember your slappin' Si for tellin' the folks at home about the teacher and you takin' long walks at noon out to the honeysuckle patch. I've a great mind to go in and tell it all to Si right before that feller. Then your cake'll all be dough. Don't git too uppish with me, young lady. Gi' me that plate and let me take it in."
The cakes on the griddles burned while Maria watched through the door what she mentally described as the "arts and manuvers o' that sassy little piece." She was gratified to see that Shorty's eyes kept glancing at the door for her own reappearance. She carried in the next plate of cakes herself, and though they were a little scorched, Shorty ate them with more zest than any of their predecessors.
Si announced, as he shoved back from the table:
"Well, we've got to go right off. We must ketch that accommodation and git back to Bean Blossom Crick. I want to say good-by to the folks, and then strike out for Jeffersonville. I've reported that I'm able for dooty agin, and there's orders at home for me and Shorty to go to Jeffersonville and git a gang o' recruits that's bin gethered there, and bring 'em to the rijimint."
Shorty had been in hopes that Si would dally for a day or so in these pleasant pastures, but then he reflected that where Annabel was was likely to be much more attractive to Si than where she was not.
"No need o' my goin' back with you," he ventured to suggest, speaking for the first time. "I might take the train goin' East, and git things in shape at Jeffersonville by the time you come."
Then his face grew hot with the thought that everyone saw through his transparent scheme to get an hour or two more with Maria.
"No," said Si, decisively. "You'll go back with me. Father and mother and 'Mandy are all anxious to see you, and they'll never forgive me if I don't bring you back with me. Le's start."
If, at parting. Shorty had mustered up courage enough to look Maria squarely in the eyes, he might have read something there to encourage him, but no deeply-smitten man ever can do this. There is where the "light o' loves" have the great advantage. He could only grip her hand convulsively for an instant, and then turn and follow Si.
At the Deacon's home Shorty found the same quiet, warm welcome, with too much tact on the part of anyone except little Sammy Woggles to make any comment on the circumstances of his disappearance. Sammy was clearly of the opinion that Si had run down Shorty and brought him back, and this had the beneficial effect of dampening Sammy's runaway schemes. He was also incensed at Shorty's perfidy in not sending him the rebel gun, and thought that his being brought back was righteous retribution.
"Served you right, you black-hearted promise-breaker," he hissed at Shorty when they found themselves momentarily alone. "I writ you that letter, and it nearly killed me—brung me down with the measles, and you never sent me that gun. But I'll foller yer trail till you do."
"Don't be a little fool, Sammy. You stay right here. You've got the best home in the world here. If you do I'll send you your gun inside of a month, with some real rebel catridges and a bayonet that's killed a man, and a catridge-box with a belt that you kin carry your ammunition in—that is, if you'll write me another letter, all about Maria."
"I won't write you a word about Maria," said the youth, seeing his advantage, "onless you promise to send me a whole lot o' catridges—a hatful. Powder and lead costs a heap o' money. And so do caps."
I'll Send You a Catridge and Cap for Every Word You Write About Maria. 213
"You shall have 'em. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send you a catridge and cap for every word you write about Maria."
"It's a go," said the delighted boy. "I'm goin' to learn someway to write without bitin' my tongue, an' I'll write you as many words every day as I want catridges to shoot off, so that I'll have enough for the next Fourth o' July, and kill all old Pete Walker's snappin' dogs besides."
The boys were to leave on the midnight train. The bigger part of Si's leave-taking seemed to be outside of his family, for he quit the house immediately after supper and did not leave Annabel's side until he had just barely time to get back home, take leave of his weeping mother and help store in the spring wagon more than he and Shorty could carry of the good things she had provided for them.
"What's this?" said Si to Shorty the next day at Jeffersonville, when they had reported to the Provost-Marshal, and had mustered before them the squad of recruits that they were to conduct to their regiment. "Have they bin roundin' up some country school-houses, and enlisted all the boys that was in the fourth reader and Ray's arithmetic?"
"Seems like it," said Shorty, looking down the line of bright, beardless, callow faces. "Some o' them don't look as if they'd got as fur as the fourth reader. Ain't old enough to spell words o' more than two syllables. What do they want with so many drummer-boys?"
"We aint no drummer-boys," said a bright-faced five-footer, who overhead the question. "Nary drum for us. We haint got no ear for music. We're regular soldiers, we are, and don't you forget it."
"But you ain't nigh 18," said Si, looking him over, pleased with the boy's spirit.
"You bet I'm over 18," answered the boy. "I told the Mustering Officer I was, and stuck to it in spite of him. There, you can see for yourself that I am," and he turned up his foot so as to show a large 18 marked on the sole of his shoe. "There, if that don't make me over 18, I'd like to know what does," he added triumphantly, to the chorus of laughter from his companions.
In the entire squad of 65 there were not more than half a dozen bearded men. The rest were boys, all clearly under their majority, and many seeming not over 15. There were tall, lathy boys, with tallowy faces; there were short, stocky boys, with big legs and arms and fat faces as red as ripe apples, and there were boys neither very fat nor very lean, but active and sprightly as cats. They were in the majority. Long and short, fat and lean, they were all bubbling over with animal spirits and activity, and eager to get where they could see "real war."
"Say, mister," said the irrepressible five-footer, who had first spoken to Si; "we've bin awful anxious for you to come and take us to our regiment. We want to begin to be real soldiers."
"Well, my boy," said Si, with as much paternalism as if he had been a grandfather, "you must begin right now, by actin' like a real soldier. First, you mustn't call me mister. Mustn't call nobody mister in the army. My name's Sergeant Klegg. This other man is Corporal Elliott, You must always call us by those names, When you speak to either of us you must take the position of a soldier—stand up straight, put your heels together, turn your toes out, and salute, this way."
"Is this right?" asked the boy, carefully imitating Si.
"Yes, that's purty near right—very good for first attempt. Now, when I speak to you, you salute and answer me. What is your name?"
"Henry Joslyn, sir."
"Well, Henry, you are now Private Joslyn, of the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry. I can't tell what company you'll belong to till we git to the rigimint, but I'll try to have you in Co. Q, my company."
"But when are we going to get our guns and knapsacks and things, and start for the regiment?" persisted the eager boy, and the others joined in the impatient inquiry.
"You won't git your guns and accourterments till you git to the rigimint. As soon's I kin go over this roll and identify each one o' you, I'll see what the orders is for starting."
"There goes some men for the ferry now. Why can't we go with them?" persisted the boy.
"Private Joslyn," said Si, with some official sternness, "the first thing a soldier's got to learn is to keep quiet and wait for orders. You understand?"
"'Pears to me that there's a lot o' first things to learn," grumbled the boy to the others, "and it's nothin' but wait, wait forever. The army'll go off and leave us if we don't get down there purty soon."
"Don't worry, my boy, about the army goin' off and leavin' you," said Shorty in a kindly way. "It'll wait. It kin be depended on for that. Besides, it's got to wait for me and Sargint Klegg."
"That's so. Didn't think o' that," chorused the boys, to whose eyes the two veterans seemed as important as Gens. Grant or Thomas.
"That's purty light material for serious bizniss, I'm afeared," said Shorty to Si, as they stood a little apart for a moment and surveyed the coltish boys, frisking around in their new blouses and pantaloons, which fitted about like the traditional shirt on a bean-pole.
"I think they're just splendid," said Si, enthusiastically. "They'll fill in the holes o' the old rigimint in great shape. They're as tough as little wildcats; they'll obey orders and go wherever you send 'em, and four out o' every five o' them kin knock over a crow at a hundred yards with a squirrel rifle. But, Shorty," he added with a sudden assumption of paternal dignity, "me and you's got to be fathers to them. We've got a great responsibility for them. We must do the very best we kin by 'em."
"That's so," said Shorty, catching at once the fatherly feeling. "I'll punch the head off en the first sneezer that I ketch tryin' to impose on 'em."
XVI. THE TROUBLESOME BOYS SI AND SHORTY'S RECRUITS ENTER KENTUCKY
THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put in charge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected with the war. For two years they had been fed on stories and incidents of the mighty conflict then convulsing the land. Every breath they had drawn had some taste of battle in it. Wherever they went or were they heard incessantly of the storm-swept "front"—of terrific battles, perilous adventures, heroic achievements, death, wounds and marvelous escapes. The older boys were all at the front, or going there, or coming back with heroic marks of shot and shell. The one burning aspiration in every well-constructed boy's heart was to get big enough to crowd past the recruiting officer, and go where he could see with his own eyes the thunderous drama. There was concentrated all that fills a healthy boy's imagination and stirs his blood—something greater than Indian-fighting, or hunting lions and tigers. They looked on Si and Shorty with little short of reverence. Here were two men who had captured a rebel flag in a hand-to-hand fight, both of whom had been left for dead, and both promoted for gallantry. What higher pinnacle of greatness could any boy hope to reach?
They began at once seriously imitating the walk and manners of their heroes. The tall, lank boys modeled themselves on Shorty, and the short, chubby ones on Si. And there at once rose contention between them as to which was the greater hero.
"I heard," said Henry Joslyn, "that Corpril Elliott was the first to reach the rebel flag, he havin' much the longest legs, but jest as he grabbed it a big rebel knocked him, and then they all piled on to him, and about had him finished when Serg't Klegg reached there at a charge bayonets, and he bayoneted everybody in sight, until a sharpshooter in a tree shot him with an explosive bullet that tore his breast all to pieces, but he kept right on bayonetin' 'em till he dropped from loss o' blood. Then they fired a cannon at the sharpshooter and blowed him to pieces just as you'd blow a chippy to pieces with a bullet from a bear- gun."
"'Twan't that way at all," said tall, lathy Gid Mackall. "A whole lot of 'em made for the flag together. A charge o' grapeshot come along and blowed the rest away, but Serg't Klegg and Corpril Elliott kep' right on. Then Corpril Elliott he lit into the crowd o' rebels and laid a swath right around him, while Sergint Klegg grabbed the flag. A rebel Colonel shot him, but they couldn't stop Corpril Elliott till they shot a brass six-pounder at him."
The boys stood on the banks of the Ohio River and gazed eagerly at the other side. There was the enemy's country—there the theater in which the great drama was being enacted. Everything there had a weird fascination for them, as a part of, or accessory to, the stupendous play. It was like peeping under the circus tent, when they were smaller, and catching glimpses of the flying horses' feet.
And the questions they asked. Si had in a manner repelled them by his curt treatment of Harry Joslyn, and his preoccupied air as he went back and forth getting his orders and making preparations for starting. But Shorty was in an affable mood, and by pleasantly answering a few of their inquiries brought the whole fire of their questioning upon him.
"Are any o' them men you see over there guerrillas?" they asked.
"Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they're peaceable citizens, though."
"How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"
"By the way they shoot at you. The peaceable citizens don't shoot—at least, in day time and out in the open. They lay for you with sole- leather pies, and chuck-a-luck boards and 40-rod whisky, and aid. and abet the Southern Confedrisy that way. They get away with more Union soldiers than the guerrillas do. But you can never tell what an able- bodied man in Kentucky'll do. He may lay for you all day with wildcat whisky, at $5 a canteenful, to git money to buy ammunition to shoot at you at night. He's surer o' gittin' you with a canteen o' never-miss whisky, but there's more healthy excitement about shootin' at you from behind a bank. And his pies is deadlier'n his apple-jack. A man kin git over an apple-jack drunk, but Kentucky pies 's wuss'n nux vomica on fish."
"Mustn't we eat none o' their pies?" asked the boys, with longing remembrance of the fragrant products of their mothers' ovens.
"Nary a pie. If I ketch a boy eatin' a pie after we cross the river I'll buck-and-gag him. Stick to plain hardtack and pork. You'll git to like it better'n cake by and by. I eat it right along in preference to the finest cake ever baked."
Shorty did not think it necessary to mention that this preference was somewhat compulsory.
"Why don't you hunt down the guerrillas and kill 'em off and be done with 'em?"
"You can't, very well. You see, guerrilain' is peculiar. There's somethin' in the air and water down in Kentucky and Tennessee that brings it on a man. You'll see a plain farmer man, jest like them around your home, and he'll be all right, goin' about his place plowin' and grubbin' sprouts and tendin' to his stock, and tellin' you all the time how much he loves the Union and how he and his folks always bin for the Union. Next thing you know he'll be out behind a cedar bush with a shotgun loaded with slugs, waitin' to make a lead mine o' some feller wearin' blue clothes. You see him before he does you, and he'll swear that he was out after the crows that's bin pullin' up his corn. He'll take' the oath of allegiance like it was a dram of old apple-jack, and tears'll come into his eyes at the sight o' the Old Flag, which he and his'n has always loved. He'll go ahead plowin' and grubbin' sprouts and tendin' his cattle till the fit comes on him agin to go gunnin' for bluecoats, and off he is, to go through the whole performance agin. You kin never tell how long his loosid interval will last, nor when the fit's comin' on him. Mebbe the changes o' the moon's somethin' to do with it. Mebbe it's somethin' that they eat, like what the cattle eat out West that makes 'em go crazy."
"Will the guerrillas begin shootin' at us as soon's we cross the river?"
"Can't tell. Guerrillas's like the nose-bleed—likely to come on you at any time. They're jest where you find 'em—that's when they're jumpin' you.. When they aint jumpin' you, they're lawabiding Union citizens, entitled to the protection o' the laws and to draw rations from the Commissary. To make no mistake, you want to play every man in citizen's clothes south of the Ohio River for a rebel. And when you don't see him, you want to be surer than ever, for then he's layin' for you."
Si came up at this moment with orders for them to pick up and go down to the ferry, and the lively hustle shut off Shorty's stream of information for the time being. The boys swarmed on to the bow of the ferry-boat, where they could scrutinize and devour with eager eyes the fateful shore of Kentucky.
"Don't look so very different from the Indiana side," said Harry Joslyn, as they neared the wharf. "Same kind o' wharf-boats and same kind o' men on 'em."
"That's because we've taken 'em and have our own men there," replied Gid Mackall. "It'll all be different when we git ashore and further into the State."
"Wasn't expecting nothing else," said Albert Grimes. "I've been watchin' the Sargint and Corpril, and they're acting just as if it was every day bizniss. I'm not going to expect anything till I see them lookin' serious."
They landed and walked to the depot through the streets of Louisville, which were also disappointingly like those they had seen elsewhere, with the stores open and people going about their business, as if no shadow of war brooded over the land. There were some more soldiers on the streets, and a considerable portion of the vehicles were army wagons, but this was all.
"When'll we see some rebels?" the boys asked.
"Don't be impatient," said a soldier on the sidewalk; "you'll see 'em soon enough, and more'n you want to. You'll have to go a little further, but you'll find the woods full of 'em. You'll be wishin' you was back home in your little trundle-beds, where they ought've kept you."
"Shut up, you coffee-boiler," shouted Shorty, striding toward him. "These boys 's goin' to the front, where you ought to be, and I won't have you sayin' a word to discourage 'em."
"Too bad about discouraging 'em," laughed another, who had a juster appreciation of the situation. "You couldn't discourage that drove of kids with a hickory club."
After the train left Louisville it passed between two strong forts bristling with heavy guns. Here was a reality of war, and the boys' tide of questions became a torrent that for once overslaughed Shorty's fine talent for fiction and misinformation.
"How many battles had been fought there?"
"How many Union soldiers had been killed?"
"How many rebels?"
"Where were they buried?"
"How big a ball did the guns shoot?"
"How far would it carry?"
"How many men would it kill if they were put one behind another?"
"How near would the guns come to hitting a man a mile off?"
"Could the gunner knock a man's head off, or one of his legs, just as he pleased?"
"Were the guns rifled or smooth-bore?"
"How much powder did it take to load them?"
"How hard did they kick when they were fired?"
"Did they have flint-locks or caps?"
"Did they ever fire chain-shot, which would cut down trees and sweep away companies of men?"
"If all the rest of the men were killed wouldn't the powder-monkey get a chance to fire the gun?"
"Look here, boys," gasped Shorty, when he got a chance to answer, "I'd like to answer your questions and fill you so plumb full o' information that your hides'd crack to hold it. But I aint no complete history o' the war with heavy artillery tactics bound up in one volume. All I know is that the worst dose them forts ever give was to the fellers that had to build 'em. After you've dug and shoveled and wheeled on one of 'em for about a month you'll hate the very sight of 'em and never ask no questions about 'em. All you'll want'll be to find and kill the feller that invented them brick-red eruptions on the face o' the earth."
This was a prosaic side of the war that had not occurred to the boys.
'here, You Young Brats, What Are You up to 225
As the train ran out into the country there were plentiful signs of war to rivet the attention of the youngsters—hospitals, with the emaciated patients strolling feebly about; corrals of mules and horses, the waste and wreckage where camps had been, and bridges which had been burned and rebuilt.
"But we haint seen no guerrillas yit," said Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall, whose minds seemed more fascinated with that species of an enemy than any other, and they apparently voiced the minds of the rest. "When're we likely to see some guerrillas?"
"O, the guerrillas are layin' purty low now, betwixt here and Nashville," Si carelessly explained. "After we pass Nashville you kin begin to look out for 'em."
"Why," Gid Mackall complained to the rest of them, "Corpril Elliott said that we could begin to look out for guerrillas jest as soon's we crossed the Ohio—that the whole o' Kentucky was full of 'em. I believe Corpril Elliott knows more about his business than Sargint Klegg. Sargint Klegg seems careless like. I see lots o' fellers along the road in butternut clothes that seemed savage and sneaky like. They looked at us in a way that made me certain they wuz spying us, and had their guns hid away somewhere, ready to jump us whenever there wuz a good chanst."
"So did I," chorused the others.
The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while, taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to do went forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans, and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had just successfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering to himself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness, when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with the information:
"Here, you fellers, you want to git out there and 'tend to them kids o' your'n. They've got a couple o' citizens down there in the brush and I believe are goin' to hang 'em."
Si and Shorty ran down in the direction indicated. They found the boys, stern-eyed and resolute, surrounding two weak-eyed, trembling "crackers," who had apparently come to the train with baskets of leathery-crusted dried-apple pies for sale. The men were specimens of the weak-minded, weak-bodied, lank-haired "po' white trash," but the boys had sized them up on sight as dangerous spies and guerrillas, had laid hands on them and dragged them down into the brush, where Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn were doing a fair reproduction of Williams, Paulding and Van Wert searching Maj. Andre's clothes for incriminating documents. They had the prisoners' hands tied behind them and their ankles bound. So far they had discovered a clumsy brass-barreled pistol and an ugly-looking spring dirk, which were sufficient to confirm the dangerous character of the men. Two of the boys had secured ropes from the train, which they were trying to fashion into hangman's nooses. Gid and Harry finished a painstaking examination of the men's ragged jeans vests, with a look of disappointment at finding nothing more inculpating that some fishhooks, chunks of twist tobacco and cob-pipes.
"They must have 'em in their boots, boys. Pull 'em off," said Harry. "There's where spies usually carry their most important papers."
"Here, you young brats, what are you up to?" demanded Si, striding in among them.
"Why, Sargint," said Harry Joslyn, speaking as if confident of being engaged in a praisworthy work, which should receive the commendation of his superiors, "these're two spies and guerrillas that we ketched right in the act, and we're searchin' 'em for evidence to hang 'em."
"Spies nothin'!" said Si. "Why, them fellers hain't brains enough to tell a battery from a regiment, nor pluck enough to take a settin' hen offen her nest. Let them go at once."
"Why, Corpril Elliott told us that every man in Kentucky, particularly them what sold pies, wuz dangerous, and liable to go guerrillying at any minute," said Harry in an aggrieved tone. "These fellers seemed to be sneakin' down to find that we hadn't no guns and then jump us."
"Well, what I said wuz true on jineral principles," laughed Shorty. "But there's occasionally exceptions to even what I tell you. These fellers are as harmless as garter-snakes. Why didn't you come and speak to us?"
"Why, you shoved our car out there into the brush and went off and left us. We thought we had to look out for ourselves," explained Harry. "Can't we hang 'em, anyway?" he added in an appealing tone, and the rest of the boys looked wistfully at Si for permission to proceed.
"No, you can't, I tell you. Turn 'em loose this minute, and give 'em back their things, and go yourselves to your car. We're goin' to start now. Here," he continued to the two men, "is a dollar. Take your pies and dig out. Don't attempt to sell any o' them pies to these boys, or I'll hang you myself, and there won't be no foolishness about it. Git back to your car, boys."
"There won't be no hangin', and we won't git none o' the pies," complained the boys among themselves. "Sargint Klegg's gittin' overbearin'. What'd he interfere for? Them fellers was guerrillas, as sure as you're born, just as Corpril Elliott described 'em before we crossed the river."
XVII. THE FRIGHTENED SURGEON SI AND SHORTY HAVE A TIME WITH THEIR WILD, YOUNG SQUAD
MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.
"How in the world'd we ever git clean through the State without the least bit o' trouble?" asked Harry Joslyn, as they stood together on the platform awaiting the return of Si and Shorty, who had gone to see about their breakfast. "It was fight from the word go with the other men from the minute they struck Kentucky."
"Probably it was Corpril Elliott's good management," suggested Gid Mackall, whose hero-worship of Shorty grew apace. "I tell you there aint a trick o' soldierin' that he aint up to."
"Corpril Elliott's?" sneered Harry Joslyn. "You're just stuck on Corpril Elliott. If it was anybody's good management it was Sargint Klegg's. I tell you, he's the boss. He got shot through the breast, while Corpril Elliott only got a crack over the head. That settles it as to who's the best soldier. I'm kind o' sorry that we didn't have no trouble. Mebbe the folks at home'll git the idea that we skulked and dodged."
"That's so," accorded the others, with a troubled look.
"But we are now in Tennessee," chirped in Gid Mackall hopefully. "That's ever so much worse'n Kentucky. We must come to rebels purty soon now. They won't let so many reinforcements git to Gen. Thomas if they kin help it." And Gid looked around on his companions, as if he thought their arrival would turn the scale and settle the fate of the Confederacy. "They'll probably jump us just as soon as we leave town. Them big forts on the hills mebbe keeps them outside now, but they're layin' for us just beyond. Wonder if we'll git our guns here? Mebbe that's what the Sargint and Corpril's gone for."
"They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile."
"'Tention!" commanded Si. "Fall in single rank 'cordin' to your size. Tall boys on the right, short ones on the left, medium in the center. Gid Mackall, you're the tallest. You can go there to the corner o' the platform and let the others form on you."
Si stepped back into the shed to look after some matters.
Harry Joslyn whipped around and took his stand on the right of Gid Mackall.
"Here," protested Gid; "Sargint Klegg told me to stand on the right. You're smaller'n me. Git on the other side."
"I won't do it," answered Harry. "I've always stood ahead o' you in school, ever since we were in the primer class, and I aint goin' to stand behind you in the army. You needn't try to gouge me out o' my rights because you're half-a-head taller. I'm two months older'n you, and I can throw you in a wrastle every time."
"I tell you," said Gid, giving Harry an angry shove toward the left, "that this is my place, and I'm goin' to stand here. The Sargint told me to. Go down where you belong, you little rat."
The hot-headed Harry mixed up with him immediately, school-boy fashion. Shorty rushed up and separated the two, giving Harry a sharp shake. "Stop that, and go down to your place in the center," said he.
"Yes; you side with him," whimpered Harry, "because he praises you and says you're a better soldier'n Sargint Klegg. I'm goin' to tell Sargint Klegg that."
"Here," said Si, sternly, as he came back again. "What's all this row? Why don't you boys fall in 'cordin' to size, as I told you?"
"Sargint," protested Harry, "Gid Mackall wants to stand at the head o' the class. I'm older'n him, I can spell him down, and I can throw him in—"
Si interrupted the appeal by taking Harry by the ear and marching him to his place.
"Look here," he said, "when you git an order from anyone, don't give 'em no back talk. That's the first thing you've got to learn, and the earlier you learn it the less trouble you'll have. If you don't like it, take it out in swearin' under your breath, but obey."
"But, Sargint, he said that Corpril Elliott was a better soldier'n"
"Silence in ranks," said Si, giving him a shake. "Right dress. Come out in the center. Mackall, stand up straight there. Take that hump out o' your shoulders. Put your heels together, all of you. Turn your toes out. Put your little fingers down to the seams o' your pantaloons. Draw your stomachs in. Throw your chests out. Hold your heads up. Keep your faces straight to the front, and cast your eyes to the right until you kin see the buttons on the breast o' the third man to your right. Come forward until they're in line.
"Goodness," moaned some of the boys, as they were trying to obey what seemed a' hopeless mass of directions, "do we have to do this every mornin' before we kin have breakfast? We'll starve to death before we git anything to eat. No use tellin' us to draw our stomachs in. They're clean in to our backbones now."
"Mustn't talk in ranks, boys," Shorty kindly admonished. "It's strictly agin' regulations. Straighten up, there, like soldiers, all o' you, and git into a line. Looks like a ram's horn now. If the rebels'd shoot down that line they wouldn't hit one o' you."
Jim Humphries, one of the medium-sized boys, suddenly turned as white as a sheet and fell on the planks. One after another of those around him did the same, until a half-dozen were lying there in a heap.
"What in the world's the matter?" asked Si, rushing up to them in dismay.
"They're pizened, that's what they are," shouted Harry Joslyn. "That guerrilla goin' over there pizened 'em. I saw him a-givin' 'em something. He's tryin' to git away. Le's ketch him."
At the word the boys made a rush for the man who was quietly walking off. As they ran they threw stones, which went with astonishing precision and force. One of them struck the man on the head and felled him. Then the boys jumped on him and began pounding and kicking him. Si and Shorty came up, pushed off the boys and pulled the man to his feet. He was terrified at the onset which had been made upon him, and could not understand its reason.
"What've I done?" he gasped. "What're all yo'uns weltin' me for? I haint no rebel. I've done tuk the oath of allegiance long ago."
"Now there'll be a hangin' sure," said Harry, in eager expectancy.
"What'd you do to them boys back there?" demanded Si.
"Didn't do nothin' to 'em. Sw'ar to God A'mighty I didn't."
"That telegraph pole will be just the thing to hang him on," suggested Harry to Gid. "We could put him on a flat car and push the car out from under him. I'll look around for a rope, Gid, and you git ready to climb the pole."
"He did do something to 'em, Sargint," said Gid Mackall. "I seen him givin' 'em something."
"'Twas only a little mite o' terbacker," the man explained. "They'uns said they'uns was mouty hongry, and wanted t' know if I'd anything t' eat. I hadn't nothing, but I done had a little terbacker, which I tole 'em'd take away the hongry feelin', and I gin each o' they'uns a lettle chaw."
"I shouldn't wonder but he's tellin' the truth," Shorty whispered to Si. "Le's take him back there and see."
Coming back to the platform they found the boys there recovering but still very weak and pale. They confirmed the story about the tobacco. Shorty examined the rest of the tobacco in the man's possession with the practiced taste of a connoisseur, found it strong black plug, just the thing to upset a green boy who took it on an empty stomach, cut off a liberal chew for himself and dismissed the man with a kick.
"Now, le's form agin and march to breakfast. Great Scott, how hungry I am," said Si. "'Tention. Fall in 'cordin' to size. Single rank."
"What's size got to do with gittin' breakfast?" complained Harry Joslyn, who had another grievance, now that he had again been disappointed in hanging a guerrilla. "Biggest boys'll git there first and get the most to eat. The rest of us need just as much as they do."
"Silence in the ranks," commanded Shorty, snappishly. "Don't fool around. Git into your place and stay there. We want breakfast some time today."
Shorty lined up the boys in a hurry and Si commanded.
"Right dress! Come out a little there on the left! Steady! Without doublin', right face!"
A squad of Provost-Guards came up at a double-quick, deployed, surrounded the squad and began bunching the boys together rather roughly, using the butts of their muskets.
"What does this mean?" Si asked angrily of the Lieutenant in command.
"It means that you and your precious gang have to go down to Provo' Headquarters at once," answered the Lieutenant. "And no words about it. Forward, march, now."
"But you've got no business to interfere with me," protested Si. "I've got my orders to take this squad o' recruits to my regiment, and I'm doin' it. I'm goin' to put 'em on the cars as soon's I kin git breakfast for 'em, and start for Chattanoogy."
"Well, why didn't you get breakfast for them and put them on the cars peaceably and quietly, without letting them riot around and kill citizens and do all manner of devilment. You have a fine account to settle."
"But they haint killed no citizen. They haint bin riotin' around, and I ain't a-goin' with you. You've no right, I tell you, to interfere with me."
"Well, you just will go with me, and no more chinning."
A Major, attracted by the altercation, rode up and asked what was the matter.
"Word came to Headquarters," explained the Lieutenant, "that a squad of recruits were rioting, and had killed a citizen, and I was sent down here on the run to stop it and arrest the men. This Sergeant, who seems to be in command, refuses to go with me."
"I tell you, Major," said Si, who recognized the officer as belonging to his brigade, "there was nobody killed, or even badly hurt. These little roosters got up a school-yard scrap all about a mistake; it was all over in a minute. There's the man they say was killed, settin' over there on that pile o' lumber smokin' his pipe."
"You're Si Klegg, aren't you, of the 200th Ind.?" asked the Major.
"Yes, Major," answered Si, saluting. "And you're Maj. Tomlinson, of the 1st Oshkosh. This is my pardner. Shorty."
"Glad to see you with Sergeant's stripes on," said the Major, shaking hands with him. "I congratulate you on your promotion. You deserved it, I know."
"So did Shorty," added Si, determined that his partner should not lack full measure of recognition.
"Yes, I congratulate Shorty, too. Lieutenant, I know these men, and they are all right. There has been a mistake. You can take your men back to Headquarters."
"'Tention," commanded the Lieutenant. "Get into line! Right dress! Front! Right face! Forward, file left—march!"
"'Tention," commanded Si. "Fall in in single ranks, 'cordin' to size. Be mighty spry about it. Right dress! Count off in whole numbers."
Another Provost squad came double-quicking up, followed by some ambulances. Again the boys were hurriedly bunched up. The Provost squad, however, did not seem to want to come to as close quarters as the other had. They held back noticeably.
"Now, what in thunder does this mean?" asked Si with angry impatience. "What's up now?"
"Sergeant, are you in command of this squad?" asked a brisk little man with the green stripes of a Surgeon, who got out of one of the ambulances.
"Yes, I am," said Si, saluting as stiffly as he dared. "What's the matter?"
"Well, get those men of yours that are down into the ambulances as quickly as you can, and form those that are able to walk close behind. Be on the jump, because the consequences of your staying here may be serious to the army. How are you feeling yourself? Got any fever? Let me see your tongue."
"What in the world's the matter with you?" asked Si in bewilderment.
"Come, don't waste any time asking questions," answered the nervous little Surgeon. "There's more troops coming right along, and we mustn't take any chances of their catching it."
"Ketch what? Great grief, ketch what?" groaned Si. "They've already ketched everything in this mortal world that was ketchable. Now what are they goin' to ketch?"
"Why, the smallpox, you dumby," said the Surgeon irritably. "Don't you know that we are terribly afraid of a visitation of smallpox to the army? They've been having it very bad in some places up North, and we've been watching every squad of recruits from up there like hawks. A man came down to Hospital Headquarters just now and reported that a dozen of your boys had dropped right on the platform. He said that he knew you, and you came from a place in Indiana that's being swept by the smallpox."
Smallpox, Your Granny, Said si 237
"Smallpox, your granny," said Si wrathfully. "There haint bin no smallpox in our neighborhood since the battle o' Tippecanoe. The only man there who ever had it fit in the battle under Gen. Harrison. He had it when he was a child, and was so old that the pockmarks on him wuz wore so smooth you could scarcely see 'em. Our neighborhood's so healthy you can't even have a square case o' measles. Gosh darn it," Si exploded, "what glandered fool was it that couldn't tell 'backer-sick from smallpox? What locoed calves have you runnin' up to your Headquarters bawlin' reports?"
"Sir," said the Surgeon stiffly, "you forget that you are speaking to your superior officer."
"Excuse me. Doctor," said Si, recovering himself and saluting. "I'm very hungry, and worried to death with these frisky kids that I'm trying to git to my regiment. The only trouble is that some of the trundle-bed graduates took their first chaw o' terbacker this mornin' on empty stomachs and it keeled 'em over. Come here and look at 'em yourself. You'll see it in a minute."
"Certainly. I see it very plainly," said the Surgeon, after looking them over. "Very absurd to start such a report, but we are quite nervous on the subject of smallpox getting down to the army.
"Take your men in and give them their breakfast, Sergeant, and they'll be all right.
"That's what I've bin tryin' to do for the last two hours," said Si, as he saluted the Surgeon, departing with his ambulances and men. "'Tention. Confound you, fall in in single rank, 'cordin' to size, and do it in short meter, before anything else happens. Right dress! Front! Without doublin', right face! Great Scott, what's the matter with you roosters? Don't you know your right hands from your lefts? Turn around there, you moon-eyed goshngs! Forward—file right—march!"
"Here, Sergeant," said a large man with three chevrons on his arm. "I want to halt your men till I look 'em over. Somebody's gone through a sutler's car over there on the other track and I think it was your crowd. I want to find out."
"Halt nothin'," said Si, brushing him out of the way. "I'm goin' to git these youngsters their breakfast before there's a tornado or an earthquake. Go 'way, if you know what's good for you."
XVIII. NO PEACE FOR SI AND SHORTY THE YOUNGSTERS KEEP THEM BUSY WHILE THE TRAIN MOVES SOUTH
THE long fast had sharpened the zest the boys had for their first "soldier-breakfast." Until they got down to "real soldier-living" they could not feel that they were actually in the service. To have this formal initiation in the historic city of Nashville, far in the interior of the Southern Confederacy, was an exhiliarating event. The coarse fare became viands of rare appetency.
"Gracious, how good these beans taste," murmured Harry Joslyn, calling for a second plateful; "never knowed beans to taste so good before. Wonder how they cook 'em? We'll have to learn how, Gid, so's to cook 'em for ourselves, and when we git back home won't we astonish our mothers and sisters?"
"And sich coffee," echoed Gid. "I'll never drink cream in my coffee agin. I hadn't no idee cream spiled coffee so. Why, this coffee's the best stuff I ever drunk. Beats maple sap, or cider through a straw, all holler. That's good enough for boys. This 's what men and soldiers drink."
"You know those old gods and goddesses," put in Montmorency Scruggs, a pale, studious boy, for shortness called "Monty," and who had a great likeness for ancient history and expected to be a lawyer, "drunk what they called nectar. Maybe it was something like this."
"But we haven't had any hardtack yet," complained Albert Russell, a youth somewhat finicky as to dress, and who had ambitions of becoming a doctor. "They've only given us baker's bread, same as we got on the other side of the river, only better-tasting. Why don't they give us real soldier bread? I've heard Uncle Bob laugh at the 'soft-bread snoozers,' who never got near enough the front to know the taste of hardtack."
"Well, I'm going to eat all I can of it while I can get it," said little Pete Skidmore, the youngest and smallest of the lot, who had only passed the Mustering Officer by exhibiting such a vehement desire to enter the service as to make up for his probable lack of years and quite evident lack of inches. "I've heard Uncle Will say that he was always mighty glad to get back where he could get soft bread for a change, after he'd worn his grinders down to the quick chawing hardtack. It tastes awful good, anyway."
"The Government must pay big wages to the men it hires to do its cooking," philosophized Harry Joslyn, "same as it does to its lawyers and Congressmen and Generals. No common men could cook grub that way. Mebbe it took the cooks away from the Astor House and Delmonico's."
"The boys are certainly making up for lost time," complacently remarked Shorty, as, having taken off the edge of his own hunger with a plateful of pork-and-beans and a half loaf of bread, he stopped for a moment to survey the havoc that his young charges, ranged at a long, rough counter, were making in the Commissary stores. "They're eatin' as if this was the last square meal they expected to git till the rebellion's put down."
"Yes," laughed Si, emptying his second cup of coffee, "I used to think that we had appetites that'd browse a five-acre lot off clean every meal, but these kids kin distance us. If they live off the country its bones 'll be picked mighty white when they pass. That lean, lank Gid Mackall seems to be as holler as a sassidge-skin. Even that wouldn't give room for all that he's stowin' away."
"Harry Joslyn 's runnin' nose-and-nose with him. There ain't the width o' their forelocks difference. Harry's yelled for more beans at the same second that Gid has. In fact, not one of 'em has lagged. They're a great gang, I tell you, but I wouldn't want to board any one of 'em for six bits a week."
Maj. Oglesvie came up.
"Serg't Klegg," said he, "the Quartermaster says that he's got a train load of ammunition to send forward, but he's scarce of guards. I thought of your squad. Don't you think you could take charge of it? I don't imagine there is much need of a guard, for things have been pretty quiet down the road for some weeks. Still, it isn't right to send off so important a train without any protection."
"Only be too glad of the dooty, sir," answered Si, saluting. "It'll give the boys something to think of besides hanging guerrillas. Besides, they're just crazy to git hold o' guns. Where kin I git muskets for 'em?"
"March them right over to that shed there," said the Major, "and the Quartermaster will issue them muskets and equipments, which you can turn over again when you reach Chattanooga. Good-by. I hope you'll have a pleasant trip. Remember me to the boys of the old brigade and tell them I'll be with them before they start out for Atlanta."
"Purty slouchy bizniss that, givin' these kids guns before they've had any drill at all—don't know even the facin's, let alone the manual of arms," remarked Shorty doubtfully, as they marched over to the shed. "They'll be shooting holes through each others' heads and the tops o' the cars, and'll waste more ammynition than a six-mule team kin haul. They'll make a regler Fourth o' July from here to Chattynoogy."
"Don't be worried about them boys," Si reassured him. "Every one of 'em is used to handlin' guns. Then, we kin keep the catridges ourselves and not issue any till they're needed, which they mayn't be."
The boys were in a buzz of delight at getting the guns they had so longed for, and Si's first duty was to end an exuberant bayonet fencing match between Gid and Harry which was imitated all along the line.
"Stop that," he called. "Put your minds to learnin' to load and shoot first. It'll be some time before you git a chance to prod a rebel with a bayonet. Rebels are as wild as crows. You'll be lucky to git as close to 'em as the other side of a 40-acre field."
"But s'posin' a rebel runs at you with his bayonet," expostulated Harry Joslyn, "oughtn't you to know how to ward him off and settle him?"
"The best way's to settle him jest as he comes over the hill, half-a- mile away, with an ounce o' cold lead put where he lives. That'll take the pint offen his bayonet mighty certainly."
Si and Shorty showed the boys how to put on the belts carrying the cap- and cartridge-boxes, and gave them a little dumb-show instruction in loading and firing, ending with exhibiting to them a cartridge, and the method of tearing it with the teeth and putting it in the gun.
"Now give us some catridges," clamored the boys, "and let us do some real shooting."
"No," said Si; "we'll keep the catridges ourselves, and issue them to you when the enemy comes in sight."
"Nice time to give out catridges then," grumbled Harry Joslyn. "When we see the rebels we want to begin shootin' instid o' botherin' you with questions. You wouldn't kill many coons if you had to run back to the house for your powder and lead after you saw the coon before you could shoot him."
"Well, you can't have no catridges now," said Si decisively. "We're not likely to see any coons before we git to Murfreesboro. Then we'll see how things look further down the road. Take off your bayonets, all o' you, and pile into them rear cars there. Stow yourselves around and be as comfortable as you kin."
The boys preferred the tops of the cars to the inside, and scattered themselves along the length of the train to view the war-worn country of which they had heard so much from their relatives who had campaigned there. Si settled himself down in the car to read the morning papers which he had gotten in Nashville, and Shorty, producing a pack of new cards, began a studious practice, with reference to future operations in Chattanooga.
The train was slowing down for the bridge near Lavergne, when there came a single shot, followed by a splutter of them and loud yells.
There Was a Chorus of Yells, and then Another Volley. 247
Exceedingly startled, Si and Shorty sprang up, seized their guns, bounded to the door and looked out. They could see nothing to justify the alarm. There was not a rebel, mounted or unmounted, in sight. In the road below were two or three army teams dragging their slow way along, with their drivers yelling and laughing at a negro, whose mule was careering wildly across the fenceless field. The negro had been apparently jogging along, with a collection of plunder he had picked up in an abandoned camp strung upon his mule, when the latter had become alarmed at the firing and scattered his burden in every direction. The rider was succeeding in holding on by clinging desperately to the mule's neck.
Si set his gun down and clambered up the side of the car.
"What's all that shootin' about?" he demanded of Harry Joslyn.
"I didn't mean it, sir," Harry explained. "I was just aiming my gun at things I see along the road—just trying the sights like. A turkey- buzzard lighted on a stump out there, and I guess I must have forgot myself and cocked my gun, for it went off. Then Gid, seeing me miss, tried to show he was a better shot, and he banged away and missed, too, and then the other boys, they had to try their hands, and they belted away, one after another, and they all missed. I guess we didn't count as we ougther've done on the goin' forward o' the train, because we all struck much nearer than we expected to that nigger on a mule, and scared his mule nigh out o' his skin. We really didn't intend no harm."
"Where did you git catridges?" demanded Si.
"Why, that box that Alf Russell got was half full. He tried to keep 'em all hisself, and intended to shoot 'em off, one by one, to make the rest of us envious. Alf always was a pig in school, and never would divide his apples or doughnuts with the other boys. But we see them almost as quick as he did, an' Gid and me set down on him suddently, as he was lying on the roof, and took away all his catridges, and give 'em around to the rest o' the boys, one a-piece."
"Are they all gone now?"
"Yes, sir; every one shot away," answered Harry regretfully.
Si looked through several of the boxes and at some of the guns to assure himself of this. He gave those near him a lecture on their offense, and then climbed down into the car and resumed his paper, while Shorty was soon immersed again in the abstruse study of the relation of the cross- barred designs on the back of the cards to the numbers and suits of their faces.
They had passed Lavergne, and were approaching Stewart's Creek, when another startling rattle of musketry broke out, this time from the forepart of the train.
"Now, great Scott, what's up?" said Si angrily, as he quickly surveyed the surrounding country. He saw that they were not attacked, and then clambered to the top of the car, where he noticed little wreaths of powder-smoke lingering around the squad in which were Jim Humphreys, little Pete Skidmore and Wes. Brown.
"What're you young whelps shootin' for?" demanded Si. They were all so abashed at his sternness that they could not find their tongues for reply, until little Pete piped up:
"Why we've bin talkin' to the train men, and they said they wuz shot at wunst, about a year ago, from that swamp back there, and we got some catridges from them, and we thought we saw something moving in there, though Jim Humphreys said it wuz only burned stumps that we took for men, and them other boys back there had bin shootin' off their gunn and tryin' 'em, and we thought we could too—"
"You little brats," said Si; "didn't you hear my orders about firin' before we started? If another boy shoots without my orders I'll tie him up by the thumbs! Got any more catridges? Give me every one of 'em."
The boys all protested that every cartridge was gone. Si assured himself of this by examination, savagely scored the train men for giving them ammunition and threatened trouble if any more was, and having relieved his mind returned to his paper in the caboose-car.
The train ran on to a switch where there was another carrying a regiment going home on veteran furlough. Si and Shorty knew some of the men, and in the pleasure of meeting them and in hearing all the news from the front forgot that their boys were mingling with the others and being filled full of the preposterous stories with which veterans delight to stuff new recruits. Finally the whistles gave notice that the trains would move. Si got his boys back on the cars, and renewing his caution about taking care of themselves, holding on tightly and looking out for overhanging branches, returned with Shorty to their car and their occupations.
"We're comin' to Stewart's Crick, Shorty," said Si, looking up from his paper. "Recollect that hill ovyr there? That's where they had that battery that the Colonel thought we wuz goin' to git. Great Scott, the mud and briars in that old field!" "Yes," said Shorty, negligently, with his eyes fixed on the backs of the cards. "But that's ancient history. Say, I've got these marks down fine at last. They're just as plain as A, B, C. You see, when that corner o' the square comes out clear to the edge it's clubs, every time, and there's just as many spots as there is of lines—"
He was interrupted by a volley, apparently from every gun on the roofs of the cars. Then a chorus of shrill, treble, boyish yells, and next instant another volley. The two sprang to the door and looked out. Not a sign of a rebel anywhere. Si went up one side of the car, Shorty the other. They ran along the tops of the cars, storming at the boys, kicking them and bumping their heads against the boards to make them stop. When they succeeded Si sternly ordered every one of them to leave the roofs and come down into the cars. When he had gathered them there he demanded:
"Now, I want to know at once what this means?" Little Pete Skidmore again became the spokesman of the abashed crowd.
"Why, them men back there on the switch cautioned us above all things not to let the rebels git the drop on us when we come to that crick; that we wouldn't see nothin' of 'em—nothin' but a low bank, behind which they wuz hid, with their guns pokin' through the brush, but the moment we see the bank breastwork throwed up along the crick we must let into it. That's what it's for. The rebels throwed it up to hide behind. Them men said that the brush back there was as full o' rebels as a hound o' fleas, and that we must let into 'em the moment we see the bank, or they'd git the drop on us. They had an awful time there theirselves, and they gave us all the catridges they had left for us to use."
"You little numbskulls," said Si; "why didn't you come to use and tell us about this?"
"They told us to be partickeler and say nothin' to you. Your stayin' back there in the car showed that you didn't know nothin' about it; you hadn't bin down this way for a long time and wasn't up to the latest improvements, and you wuz jest as like as not to run us into a hornets' nest; that you wuzzent our real officers, anyway, and it didn't much matter to you what happened to us."
"Our own sins are comin' back on us. Shorty," remarked Si. "This is a judgment on you for the way you've filled up recruits at every chance you got."
"'Taint on me," said Shorty, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not in command. You are."
"I shall be mighty glad when we git this outfit to Chattanoogy," sighed Si. "I'm gittin' older every minute that I have 'em on my hands."
XIX. THE FIRST SCRAPE A LITTLE INITIATORY SKIRMISH WITH THE GUERRILLAS
THE train passed Shelbyville in the course of the afternoon and halted on a switch. Tired of reading, Si was standing at the door of the car, looking out over the country and trying to identify places they had passed or camped at during the campaign of the previous Summer. Suddenly his far-seeing eyes became fixed on the intervals in the trees on the farthest hill-top. Without turning his head he called Shorty in a tone which made that worthy lose all interest in his inevitable pack of cards and spring to his side. Without speaking, Si pointed to the sky-line of the eminence, against which moving figures sketched themselves.
"Guerrillas," said Shorty.
Si nodded affirmatively.
"Skeetin' acrost the country to jump this train or some other," continued Shorty.
"This one, most likely," answered Si.
"Yes," accorded Shorty, with an estimating glance at the direction of the range of hills, "and'll aim at strikin' us at some bridge or deep cut about 10 miles from here."
"Where we'll probably git sometime after dark," assented Si.
"Yes. Let's talk to the conductor and engineer."
The train had started in the meanwhile, but presently the conductor came back into the caboose. He had been a soldier, but so severely wounded as to necessitate his discharge as incapable of further field service.
"I hardly think there's any danger," said Conductor Madden. "Things 've been very quiet this side of the Tennessee River ever since last October, when Crook, Wilder and Minty belted the life out of old Joe Wheeler down there at Farmington and Rodgersville. Our cavalry gave theirs an awful mauling, and them that were lucky enough to escape acrost the river have seemed purty well satisfied to stay on that side. A hell's mint of 'em were drowned trying to get acrost the river. Our cavalry's been patrolling the country ever since, but hasn't seen anything of consequence. Still, it is possible that some gang has managed to sneak acrost a blind-ford somewhere, and in hopes to catch a train. Guerrillas are always where you find 'em."
"Well, I'll bet a hatful o' red apples," said Si, "that them was guerrillas that we saw, and they're makin' for this train. The rebels in Nashville somehow got information to 'em about it."
"Them's guerrillas," affirmed Shorty, "sure's the right bower takes the left. None o' our cavalry's stringin' around over the hill-tops. Then, I made out some white horses, which our cavalry don't have. It's just as Si says, them Nashville spies 's put the rebel cavalry onto us."
"Them cowardly, sneaking, death-deserving rebels in Nashville," broke out Conductor Madden, with a torrent of oaths. "Every man in Nashville that wears citizen's clothes ought to be hung on sight, and half the women. They don't do nothing but lay around and take the oath of allegiance, watch every move we make like a cat does a mouse, and send information through the lines. You can't draw a ration of hardtack but they know it, and they're looking down your throat while you're eating it. They haint got the gravel in their craws to go out and fight themselves, and yet they've cost us a hundred times as many lives as if they had. Why does the General allow them to stay there? He ought to order rocks tied to the necks of every blasted one of 'em and fling 'em into the Cumberland River and then pour turpentine on the infernal old town and touch a match to it. That's what I'd do if I had my way. There's more, brimstone trouble to the acre in Nashville than in any town on the footstool, not barring even Richmond."
"Nashville certainly is tough," sighed Shorty. "'Specially in gamblers. Worst tin-horn crowd that ever fumbled a deck or skinned a greeny out o' the last cent o' his bounty. Say, Si, do you remember that tin-horny that I cleaned out o' his whole pile down there at Murfreesboro, with them cards that I'd clipped with a pair o' scissors, so's I'd know 'em by the feel, and he never ketched on till his last shinplaster was gone, and then I throwed the pack in the fire? Well, I seen him down there at the depot smellin' around for suckers. I told him to let our boys alone or I'd snap his neck off short. Great Jehosephat, but I wanted a chance to git up town and give some o' them cold-deckers a whirl."
"Well," said Conductor Madden, after some deliberation, "I believe what you boys say. You're not the kind to get rattled and make rebels out of cedar-bushes. All the same, there's nothing to do but go ahead. My orders were to take this train through to Chattanooga as quick as I could. I can't stop on a suspicion."
"No, indeed," assented Si and Shorty.
"There's no place to telegraph from till we get to Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and if we could telegraph they wouldn't pay any attention to mere reports of having seen rebels at a distance. They want something more substantial than that."
"Of course they do, and very properly," said Si. "Is your engineer all right?"
"Game as they make 'em, and loyal as Abraham Lincoln himself," responded the conductor.
"Well, I believe our boys 's all right. They're green, and they're friskier than colts in a clover field, but they're all good stuff, and I believe we kin stand off any ordinary gang o' guerrillas. I'll chance it, anyhow. This's a mighty valuable train to risk, but it ought to go through, for we don't know how badly they may need it. You tell your engineer to go ahead carefully and give two long whistles if he sees anything dangerous."
"I'll go and git onto the engine with him," said Shorty.
"Wait a little," said Si. "We'll get the boys together, issue 'em catridges and give 'em a little preparation for a light, if we're to have one."
The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill- stones over an adjacent pond.
"'Tention!" shouted Si.
There was something so different in the tone from that in which Si had before spoken, that it arrested the attention of every one of them instantly.
"Git your guns and fall in two ranks on that sod, there, at once," commanded Si, in quick, curt accents.
An impalpable something in the tones and words stilled everybody into seriousness. This was deepened by the look they saw on Si's face.
They snatched up their guns and hurried into line on the spot indicated, looking into each other's countenances and into that of Si's for an explanation of what was up.
"Mackall and Joslyn," called Shorty from the car, "come here and take this box of catridges."
"Now," said Si, as they did this, "Joslyn, you and Mackall issue those to the boys. One of you walk down in front and the other behind and give each man two packages of catridges. You boys open the packages and put the catridges in your catridgeboxes, bullet-end up, and the caps in your capboxes."
The boys followed his directions with nervous eagerness, inspired by his words and manner, and then fixed their anxious gaze upon him for further impartment.
Si walked down in front, in the rear of the line, superintending the operation.
"Now, boys," said Si, taking his place in front and facing them, "you've bin talkin' about guerrillas ever since we crossed the Ohio, but now there's a prospect o' meetin' some. I hadn't expected to see any till after we'd reached Chattanoogy, but guerrillas's never where you expect 'em."
"Knowin' you was so anxious to see 'em, they've come up the road to meet you," interjected Shorty.
"It looks," continued Si, "as if they'd got news of the train and slipped out here to take it away from us. They may attack it at any minute after we start agin. Now, we mustn't let 'em git it. It's too valuable to the Government to lose and too valuable to them to git. We mustn't let 'em have it, I tell you. Now, I want you to load your guns carefully, handle 'em very carefully after they are loaded, git back in the cars, stop skylarkin', keep very quiet, listen for orders, and when you git 'em, obey 'em to the letter—no more, no less."
Watching the Bridge Burners at Work 259
"Can't we go back on top o' the cars, where we kin watch for 'em, and git the first pop at 'em?" said Harry Joslyn, in a pleading tone.
"No; that's too dangerous, and you'll lose time in gittin' together," answered Si. "You must all come into the cars with me."
"Sergeant," said Shorty, "let me have a couple to go on the engine with me."
"Le' me go. Le' me go," they all seemed to shout at once, holding up their hands in eager school-boy fashion.
"I can't take but two o' you," said Shorty; "more'd be in the way."
They all pressed forward. "Count out. That's the only fair way," shouted the boys in the center.
"That's so," said Harry Joslyn. "Stand still till I count. Imry, Ory, Ickery, Ann, Quevy, Quavy, Irish Navy, Filleson, Folleson, Nicholas—Buck! That's me. I'm it!"
He rapidly repeated the magic formula, and pronounced Gid Mackall "it."
"He didn't count fair! He didn't count fair! He never counts fair," protested the others; but Si hustled them into the cars and the train started.
It had grown quite dark. The boys sat silent and anxiously expectant on their seats, clutching their loaded guns, held stiffly upright, and watching Si's face as well as they could by the dim light of the single oil lamp. Si leaned against the side of the door and watched intently.
Only little Pete Skidmore was unrepressed by the gravity of the situation. Rather, it seemed to spur his feet, his hands and his mouth to nimbler activity. He was everywhere—at one moment by Si's side in the door of the car, at the next climbing up to peer out of the window; and then clambering to the top of the car, seeing legions of guerrillas in the bushes, until sternly ordered back by Si. Then he would drop the butt of his musket on the floor with a crash which would start every one of the taut nerves to throbbing. And the questions that he asked:
"Say, Sergeant, will the guerrillas holler before they shoot, or shoot before they holler?"
"Sometimes one and sometimes the other," responded Si, absently. "Keep quiet, Pete."
Quiet for a minute, and then:
"Shall we holler before we shoot or shoot before we holler?"
"Neither. Keep perfectly quiet, and 'tend strictly to your little business."
"I think we ought to holler some. Makes it livelier. What sort o' guns has the guerrillas?"
"Every kind—shot-guns, pistols, rifles, flint-locks, cap-locks—every kind. Now, you mustn't ask me any more questions. Don't bother me."
"Yes, sir; I won't."
Quiet for at least five seconds. Then:
"Have the guerrillas guns that'll shoot through the sides of the cars?"
"Probably."
"Then I'd ruther be on top, where I kin see something. Kin they shoot through the sides o' the tender, and let all the water out and stop the engine?"
"Guess not."
"Haven't they any real big guns that will?"
"Mebbe."
"Kin we plug up the holes, anyway, then, and start agin?"
"Probably."
"Hain't the engineer got an iron shield that he kin git behind, so they can't shoot him?"
"Can't he turn the steam onto 'em, and scald 'em if they try to git at him?"
"What'll happen if they shoot the head-light out?"
"Why wouldn't it be a good idee to put a lot o' us on the cow-ketcher, with fixed bayonets, and then let the engineer crack on a full head o' steam and run us right into 'em?"
"Great Scott, Pete, you must stop askin' questions," said Si desperately. "Don't you see Pm busy?"
Pete was silent for another minute. Then he could hold in no longer:
"Sergeant, jest one question more, and then I'll keep quiet."
"Well, what is it?"
"If the rebels shoot the bell, won't it make a noise that they kin hear clear back at Nashville?"
The engine suddenly stopped, and gave two long whistles. Above the screech they heard shots from Shorty and the two boys with him.
"Here they are, boys," said Si, springing out and running up the bank. "All out, boys. Come up here and form."
As he reached the top of the bank a yell and a volley came from the other side of the creek. Shorty joined him at once, bringing the two boys on the engine with him.
"We've bin runnin' through this deep cut," he explained, "and jest come out onto the approach to the bridge, when we see a little fire away ahead, and the head-light showed some men runnin' down on to the bank on the other side o' the crick. We see in a moment what was up. They've jest got to the road and started a fire on the bridge that's about a mile ahead. Their game was to burn that bridge, and when this train stopped, burn this one behind us, ketch us, whip us, and take the train. We shot at the men we see on the bank, but probably didn't do 'em no harm. They're all pilin' down now to the other bank to whip us out and git the train. You'd better deploy the boys along the top o' the bank here and open on 'em. We can't save that bridge, but we kin this and the train, by keepin' 'em on the other side o' the crick. I'll take charge o' the p'int here with two or three boys, and drive off any o' them that tries to set fire to the bridge, and you kin look out for the rest o' the line. It's goin' to be longtaw work, for you see the crick's purty wide, but our guns 'll carry further'n theirs, and if we keep the boys well in hand I think we kin stand 'em off without much trouble."
"Sure," said Si confidently. "You watch the other side o' the bridge and I'll look out for the rest."
The eager boys had already begun firing, entering into the spirit of the thing with the zest of a Fame of town-ball. Shorty took Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn down to the cover of some large stones, behind which they could lie and command the approach to the other end of the bridge with their rifles. Si took the other boys and placed them behind rocks and stumps along the crest and instructed them to fire with as good aim as possible at the flashes from the other side. In a minute or two he had a fine skirmish-line in operation, with the boys firing as deliberately and accurately as veterans. The engineer had backed the train under the cover of the cut, and presently he and the conductor came up with guns and joined the firing-line.
"I say, Shorty," said Si, coming down to where that worthy was stationed, "what d' you think o' the boys now? They take to this like a duck to water. They think it's more fun than squirrel-huntin'. Listen."
They heard Monty Scruggs's baritone call:
"Say, Alf, did you see me salt that feller that's bin yellin' and cussin' at me over there? He's cussin' now for something else. I think I got him right where he lived."
"I wasn't paying any attention to you," Alf's fine tenor replied, as his rammer rang in his barrel. "I've got business o' my own to 'tend to. There's a feller over there that's firing buckshot at me that I've got to settle, and here goes."
"The 200th Injianny Volunteers couldn't put up a purtier skirmish than this," murmured Si, in accents of pride, as he raised his gun and fired at a series of flashes on the farther bank.
"I say, tell that engineer to uncouple his engine and bring it back up here where the head-light'll cover the other side," said Shorty. "It'll make the other side as light as day and we kin see every move, while we'll be in the dark."
"Good idee," said Si, hastening to find the engineer.
He was none too soon. As the engine rolled up, flooding its advance with light, it brought a storm of bullets from the other side, but revealed three men creeping toward the other end of the bridge. Two were carrying pine knots, and the third, walking behind, had a stick of blazing pine, which he was trying to shield from observation with his hat.
"Take the front man, Harry. Take the second one, Gid. I'll take the man with the light," commanded Shorty.
The three rifles cracked in quick succession and the three men dropped.
"Bully, boys," ejaculated Shorty, as he reloaded. "You'll do. The 200th Injianny's proud o' you."
"I hit my man in the leg," said Harry, flushing with delight, as he bit off another cartridge. "Jerusalem, I wish they'd send another one down."
"I drawed on my man's bundle o' wood," said Gid, "and then dropped a little, so's to git him where he was biggest and make sure o' him."
"Well, my man's beauty's spiled forever," said Shorty. "The light flared up on his face and I let him have it there."
"But Linden saw another light. When beat the drums at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to hight The darkness of her scenery,"
recited Monty Scruggs. "Gracious, I'm hit!"
"Where?" asked Si, running up to him.
"Through my leg," answered Monty.
"Kin you walk?"
"I guess so."
"Well, make your way back to the cars and git in and lay down."
"Not much," answered Monty determinedly. "It don't hurt much, and I'm going to stay and see this thing out. I can tie it up with my handkerchief."
"Scatter again, boys," Si warned several, who had rushed up; "don't make too big a mark for the fellers on the other side. Go back and 'tend to your bizniss. I'll help him tie up his wound. I'm afeared, though, that some o' the boys are runnin' out o' catridges, they have bin shootin' so rapidly. I want a couple o' you to run back to the cars and git another box."
"Let me and Sandy go," pleaded little Pete Skidmore. "The big boys went before."
"All right; skip out. Break the lid o' the box off before you take it out o' the car. We haven't anything here to do it with. Leave your guns here."
"No, we'll take 'em along," pleaded Pete, with a boyish love for his rifle. "We mightn't be able to find 'em agin."
The firing from the opposite bank became fitful, died down, and then ceased altogether. Then a couple of shots rang out from far in the rear in the direction of the train. This seemed to rouse the rebels to another volley, and then all became quiet. The shots in the rear disturbed Si, who started back to see what they meant, but met Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker coming panting up, carrying a box of cartridges between them.
"We got back as quick as we could," Pete explained as he got his breath. "Just as we was coming to the train we see a rebel who was carrying a fat-pine torch, and making for the train to set it on fire. We shot him. Was that all right?"
"Perfectly," said Si. "Was there any more with him?"
"No. We looked around for others, but couldn't find none. That's what kept up so long."
"The Johnnies have given it up and gone," said Shorty, coming up. "I went over to a place where I could see 'em skippin' out by the light o' the burnin' o' the other bridge. We might as well put out guards here and go into camp till mornin'."
"All right," assented Si. "We've saved the train and bridge, and that's all we kin do."
XX. AFTER THE SKIRMISH WILD SHOOTING WAS ALL THAT SAVED A SURPRISED COLORED MAN
THOUGH Si and Shorty were certain that the trouble was over and the rebels all gone, it was impossible to convince the boys of this. The sudden appearance of the guerrillas had been so mysterious that they could not rid themselves of the idea that the dark depths beyond the creek were yet filled with vicious foemen animated by dire intents.
Si and Shorty gathered the boys together on the bank above the railroad cut, had fires built, posted a few guards, and ordered the rest of the boys to lie down and go to sleep. They set the example by unrolling their own blankets at the foot of a little jack-oat, whose thickly- growing branches, still bearing a full burden of rusty-brown leaves, made an excellent substitute for a tent.
"Crawl in. Si, and git some sleep," said Shorty, filling his pipe. "I'll take a smoke and set up for an hour or two. If it looks worth while then, I'll wake you up and let you take a trick o' keepin' awake. But if everything looks all right I'll jest crawl in beside you and start a snorin'-match."
But neither orders nor example could calm down the nerves of boys who had just had their first experience under fire. There was as little rest for them as for a nest of hornets which had been rudely shaken. They lay down at Si's order, but the next minute they were buzzing together in groups about the fires, or out with their guns to vantage points on the bank, looking for more enemies. Their excited imaginations made the opposite bank of the creek alive with men, moving in masses, squads and singly, with the sounds of footsteps, harsh commands, and of portentous movements.
Two or three times Shorty repressed them and sharply ordered them to lie down and go to sleep. Then he decided to let them wear themselves out, braced his back against a sapling near the fire, pulled out from his pocket the piece of Maria's dress, and became lost in a swarm of thoughts that traveled north of the Ohio River.
He was recalled by Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall appearing before him.
"Say, Corpril," inquired Harry, "what's to be done with them rebels over there at the end o' the bridge?"
"Them that we shot?" said Shorty carelessly, feeling around for his tobacco to refill his pipe. "Nothin'. I guess we've done enough for 'em already."
"Don't we do nothin' more?" repeated Harry.
"No," answered Shorty, as he rubbed the whittlings from his plug to powder in the hollow of his hand.
"Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way whistlin'?" persisted Harry.
"Certainly," answered Shorty, filling his pipe and looking around for a sliver with which to light it. "What're you thinkin' about?"
"I don't hardly know," hesitated Harry. "It seems awful strange just to blaze away at men and then pay no more attention to 'em. They mayn't be knocked out at all—only 'possumin'."
"No 'possumin' about them fellers," said Shorty sententiously, as he lighted his pipe. "Feller that gits an ounce o' lead from a Springfield rifle anywhere in his carkiss don't play off nor purtend. He's got something real to occupy his attention, if he's got any attention left to occupy. You needn't bother any more about them fellers over there. Their names's mud. They're now only part o' the real estate on the other side o' the crick. They're suddently become no good for poll-tax; only to be assessed by the acre."
"So you're sure they can't do more harm to the bridge?"
"No more'n the dead leaves on the banks."
"But I thought," persisted Harry, "that when a man's killed something had to be done—coroner's inquest, corpse got ready, funeral, preacher, neighbors gather in, and so on."
"Well, you needn't bother about any obsequies to them fellers over there," said Shorty, sententiously, as he pulled away at his pipe. "You done your whole share when you done the heavy work o' providin' the corpses. Let anybody that wants to put on any frills about plantin' 'em. If we have time tomorrow mornin' and nothin' better to do, we may go over there and dig holes and put 'em in. But most likely we'll be needed to rebuild that bridge they burnt. I'd rather do that, so's we kin hurry on to Chattynoogy. Buzzards'll probably be their undertakers. They've got a contract from the Southern Confedrisy for all that work. You lay down and go to sleep. That's the first dooty of a soldier. You don't know what may be wanted o' you tomorrow, and you should git yourselves in shape for anything—fightin', marchin' or workin'."
"And sha'n't we do nothin' neither to that man that we shot when he was tryin' to set fire to the train?" asked little Pete Skidmore, who with Sandy Baker had come up and listened to Shorty's lecture. "He's still layin' out there where he dropped, awful still. Me and Sandy took a piece o' fat pine and went down and looked at him. We didn't go very close. We didn't like to. He seemed so awful quiet and still."
"No; you let him alone," snapped Shorty impatiently. "He'll keep. Lay down and git some sleep, I tell you. What need you bother about a dead rebel? He ain't makin' no trouble. It's the livin' ones that need lookin' out for."
The boys' looks showed that they were face to face with one of the incomprehensibilities of war. But they lay down and tried to go to sleep, and Shorty's thoughts returned to Indiana.
A shot rang out from the post on which he had stationed Jim Humphreys. He was on his feet in an instant, with his gun in hand, and in the next Si was beside him.
"What's up?" inquired Si, rubbing his eyes.
"Nothin', I believe," answered Shorty. "But hold the boys and I'll go out and see."
He strode forward to Jim's side and demanded what he had shot at.
"I saw some men tryin' to cross the crick there," replied Jim, pointing with his rammer in the direction of the opposite bank.
"There, you kin see 'em for yourself."
"I don't see no men," said Shorty, after a moment's scrutiny.
"There they are. Don't you see that white there?" said Jim, capping his musket for another shot.
"That white," said Shorty contemptously, "is some water-birches. They was there when you came on guard, for I noticed 'em, and they hain't moved since. You seen 'em then, lookin' just as they do now. You're a fool to think you kin see anything white in a rebel. 'Taint their color."
"I don't care," half whimpered Jim. "Gid Mackall, and Harry Joslyn, and Alf Russell, and Pete Skidmore, and even Sandy Baker, have all shot rebels, and I hain't hit none. I don't have half-a-show."
"Be patient," Shorty consoled him. "Your three years's only begun. You'll have lots o' chances yit. But if I ketch you shootin' at any more white birches I'll tie you up by the thumbs."
Shorty returned to the fire. Si bade the boys he down again, and took his own blanket. Shorty relighted his pipe, took out his never-failing deck of cards and began running them over.
Wild Shooting of the Boys Saves The Surprised Colored Man. 273
Jim Humphreys's shot had given new restlessness to the boys. They did not at all believe in Shorty's diagnosis of the situation. There must be more men lurking over there whence all that murderous shooting had come only a little while ago. Jim Humphreys was more than probably right. One after another of them quietly slipped away from the fire with his gun and made his way down to Jim Humphreys's post, which commanded what seemed to be a crossing of the creek. They stood there and scanned the opposite bank of darkness with tense expectancy. They had their ears tuned up to respond to even the rustle of the brown, dry leaves on the trees and the murmur of the creek over the stones. They even saw the white birches move around from place to place and approach the water, but Shorty's dire threat prevented their firing until they got something more substantial.
"There's rebels over there, sure as you're born,"' murmured Jim to them, without turning his head to relax his fixed gaze nor taking his finger from the trigger of his cocked gun. "Wish they'd fire a gun first to convince that old terror of a Corpril, who thinks he kin tell where rebels is just by the smell. I'd—"
"Sh! Jim, I hear a hoss's hoofs," said Harry Joslyn.
"Sh! so do I," echoed Gid Mackall.
They all listened with painful eagerness.
"Hoss's hoofs and breakin' limbs, sure's you're a foot high," whispered Harry. "And they're comin' down the hill this way."
"That's right. They're a'most to the crick now," assented Gid. "I'm going to shoot."
"No; I've got the right to a first shot," said Jim. "You fellers hold off."
Bang went Jim's gun, followed almost instantly by the others.
"Hi, dere, boys; I's done found you at las'! Whoopee!" called out a cheery voice from across the creek, and a man rode boldly down to the water's edge, where the boys were nervously reloading.
"Now, Jim Humphreys, what in blazes are you bangin' away at now?" angrily demanded Si, striding up. "At a cotton-tailed rabbit or a sycamore stump?"
"The woods is full o' rebel cavalry comin' acrost the crick," gasped Jim, as he rammed down his cartridge. "There, you kin see 'em for yourself."
"What foh you come dis-a-way, boys?" continued the voice of the man on horseback. "I done los' you! I fought we done agreed to go ober by Simpson's hill, an' I jine you dar. I went dat-a-way, an' den I hear you shootin' ober dis-a-way, an' seed yoh fiah, and I cut acrost to git to you. Whah'd you git so many guns, an' sich big ones? Sound like sojer guns. I done beared dem way ober dah, an' I—"
"Hold on, boys," sternly shouted Shorty, springing in front of them and throwing up their guns. "Don't one o' you dare shoot! Hold up, I say! Hello, you there! Who are you?"
"Who's me?" said the negro, astonished by the strange voice. "I's Majah Wilkinson's Sam, Massa Patrol. I's got a pass all right. De old Majah done tole me I could go out coon-huntin' wid Kunnel Oberly's boys tonight, but I done missed dem."
"Come ashore here, boy," commanded Shorty, "and be thankful that you're alive. You've had a mighty narrow squeak of it. Next time you go out coon huntin' be sure there's no Yankee and rebel soldiers huntin' one another in the neighborhood. Coons have a tough time then."
"Yankee sojers!" gasped the negro, as he was led back to the fire, and saw the blue uniforms. "Lawdy, massy, don't kill me. I pray, sah, don't. I hain't done nuffin. Sho' I hain't. Massa said you'd burn me alibe if you eber cotched me, but you won't, will you?"
"We ain't goin' to hurt you," said Shorty. "Sit down there by the fire and git the goose-flesh offen you." Then turning to the boys he remarked sarcastically:
"Fine lot o' marksmen you are, for a fact. Halfa dozen o' you bangin' away at a hundred yards, and not comin' close enough to a nigger to let him know you was shootin' at him. Now will you lay down and go to sleep? Here, Si, you take charge o' this gang and let me go to sleep. I've had enough o' them for one night."
During the night a train came up, carrying a regiment of entirely new troops. In the morning these scattered over the ground, scanning everything with the greatest interest and drinking in every detail of the thrilling events of the previous night.
"It's just killin'," said Si to Shorty, "to watch the veteran airs our boys are puttin' on over those new fellers. You'd think they'd fit in every battle since Bunker Hill, and learned Gen. Grant all he knows about tactics. Talk about the way the old fellers used to fill us up, why, these boys lay away over everything we ever knowed. I overheard Harry Joslyn laying it into about 40 of them. 'No man knows just what his feelin's will be under fire until he has the actual experience,' says he. 'Now, the first time I heard a rebel bullet whistle,' and his face took on a look as if he was trying to recollect something years ago."
"Yes," laughed Shorty, "and you should hear little Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker lecturing them greenies as to the need o' lookin' carefully to their rear and beware o' rebels sneakin' 'round and attackin' their trains. Hold on. Look through this brush. There's Monty Scruggs explainin' the plan o' battle to a crowd of 'em. He don't know we're anywhere around. Listen and you'll hear something."
"The enemy had reached the ground in advance of us," Monty was elucidating, in language with which his school histories and the daily papers had familiarized him, "and had strongly posted himself along those hights, occupying a position of great natural strength, including their own natural cussedness. Their numbers was greatly superior to ours, and they had prepared a cunning trap for us, which we only escaped by the vigilance of Corpril Elliott and the generalship of Serg't Klegg. I tell you, those men are a dandy team when it comes to running a battle. They know their little biz, and don't you forget it for a minute. The enemy opened a galling fire, when Corpril Elliott gallantly advanced to that point there and responded, while Serg't Klegg rapidly arrayed his men along there, and the battle became terrific. It was like the poet says:
"'Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steeds to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flashed the red artillery.'"
"O, come off, Monty," called the more prosaic Gid Mackall; "you know we didn't have no artillery. If we'd had, we'd a blowed 'em clean offen the hill."
The whistle summoned them to get aboard and move on.