XXI. CHATTANOOGA AT LAST LOST IN A MAZE OF RAILROAD TRAINS…

XXI. CHATTANOOGA AT LAST LOST IN A MAZE OF RAILROAD TRAINS

"WHAT'S the program?" Si inquired of the conductor, as the boys were being formed on the bank, preparatory to entering the cars. "I s'pose it's to go over there and put in a week o' hard work rebuildin' that bridge. Have you got any axes and saws on the train? How long is the blamed old bridge, anyway?"

"Not much it ain't," responded the conductor. "If you think the army's goin' to wait a week, or even a day, on a bridge, you're simply not up to date, that's all. The old Buell and Rosecrans way o' doin' things is played out since Sherman took command. Your Uncle Billy's a hustler, and don't let that escape your mind for a minute, or it'll likely lead you into trouble. You'll find when you get down to Chattynoogy that nobody's asleep in daylight, or for a good part o' the night. They're not only wide-awake, but on the keen jump. The old man kin see four ways at once, he's always where he ain't expected, and after everybody with a sharp stick. In Buell's time a burnt bridge 50 foot long 'd stopped us for two weeks. Now that bridge 'll likely be finished by the time we git there. I've just been over there, and they were layin' the stringers."

"Why, how in the world did they manage?" asked Si.

"O, Sherman's first move was to order down here duplicates for every bridge on the road. He's got 'em piled up at Louisville, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Chattynoogy. The moment a bridge is reported burned a gang starts for the place with another bridge, and they're at work as soon's it's cool enough to let 'em get to the abutments. I've seen 'em pullin' away the burnin' timbers to lay new ones. They knowed at Chattynoogy as soon's we did that the bridge was burned. The operator at the next station must 've seen it and telegraphed the news, and they started a bridge-gang right out. I tell you, double-quick's the time around where old Cump Sherman is."

"Duplicate bridges," gasped Si. "Well, that is an idee."

"What does he mean by duplicate, Corpril?" asked Harry Joslyn to Shorty.

"O, duplicate's something that you ring in on a feller like a cold deck."

"I don't understand," said Harry.

"Why—hem—hem—duplicate's the new-fangled college word for anything that you have up your sleeve to flatten a feller when he thinks he's got you euchered. You want to deal the other feller only left bowers and keep the right bowers for yourself. Them's duplicates. If you give him aces, have the jokers handy for when you want 'em. Them's duplicates. Duplicates 's Sherman's great lay—learned it from his old side-partner, Unconditional Surrender Grant—just as strategy was old McClellan's. There's this difference: Sherman always stacks the deck to win himself, while McClellan used to shuffle the cards for the other feller to win."

"Still I don't understand about the duplicate bridges," persisted Harry.

"Why, old Sherman just plays doublets on the rebels. He leads a king at 'em and then plumps down an ace, and after that the left and right bowers. They burn one bridge and he plumps down a better one instead. They blow up a tunnel and he just hauls it out and sticks a bigger one in its place. Great head, that Sherman. Knows almost as much as old Abe Lincoln himself."

"Do you say that Sherman has extra tunnels, too, to put in whenever one is needed?" asked Harry, with opening eyes.

"O, cert," replied Shorty carelessly. "You seen that big iron buildin' we went into to git on the cars at Louisville? That was really a tunnel, all ready to be shoved out on the road when it was needed. If you hadn't bin so keen on the lookout for guerrillas as we come along you'd 'a' seen pieces o' tunnels layin' all along the road ready for use."

As the train dashed confidently over the newly-completed bridge the boys gazed with intense interest and astonishment at the still smoldering wreckage, which had been dragged out of the way to admit the erection of the new structure. It was one of the wonders of the new, strange life upon which they were entering.

The marvelous impressiveness and beauty of the scenery as they approached Chattanooga fascinated the boys, who had never seen anything more remarkable than the low, rounded hills of Southern Indiana.

The towering mountains, reaching up toward the clouds, or even above them, their summits crowned with castellated rocks looking like impregnable strongholds, the sheer, beetling cliffs, marking where the swift, clear current of the winding Tennessee River had cut its way through the granite walls, all had a deep fascination for them. Then, everywhere were strong intrenchments and frowning forts, guarding the crossings of the river or the passages through the mountains. There were populous villages of log huts, some with canvas roofs, some roofed with clapboards, some with boards purloined from the Quartermaster's stores. These were the Winter quarters of the garrisons of the fortifications. Everywhere men were marching to and fro, and long trains of army wagons struggling through the mud of the valleys and up the steep hillsides.

"My, what lots o' men," gasped Harry Joslyn. "We won't be once among sich a crowd. Wonder if Sergeant Klegg and Corpril Elliott kin keep us from bein' lost?"

"Trust Corpril Elliott," said Gid, returning to his old partisanship of the taller veteran. "He knows his business every time."

"Not any better'n Sergeant Klegg," responded Harry, taking up the gantlet for his favorite. "Long-legged men are very good in their way, but they don't have the brains that shorter men have. Nature don't give no man everything. What she gives to his legs she takes off his head, my dad says."

"That's just because you're a duck-legged snipe," answered Gid wrathfully. "Do you mean to?"

"Don't make any slurs at me, you spindle-legged sand-hill crane," retorted Harry.

This was enough. Blows came next. It was their way. Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn had been inseparable companions since they had begun going to school, and they had scarcely ever let a day pass without a fight. The moment that Si and Shorty appeared within their horizon they had raised the issue of which was the best soldier, and made it a matter of lively partisanship.

Si and Shorty had been on the eager lookout for the indications of the position of the army, for places that they could recognize, and for regiments, brigades and divisions they were acquainted with, so they did not at first notice the squabble. Then they pulled the boys asunder, shook them and scolded them for their conduct.

New emotions filled Si's and Shorty's breasts. They had been away from their regiment so long that they were acutely homesick to be back to it. Such is the magic of military discipline and association that their regimental flag had become the center of their universe, and the real people of their world the men who gathered around it. Everything and everybody else was subsidiary to that thing of wonderful sacredness—"the regiment." They felt like wanderers who had been away for years, and were now returning to their proper home, friends, associations and vocation. Once more under the Flag life would become again what it should be, with proper objects of daily interest and the satisfactory performance of every-day duties. They really belonged in the regiment, and everywhere else were interlopers, sojourners, strangers in a strange land. They now sat together and talked of the regiment as they had formerly sat around the campfire with the other boys and talked of their far-away homes, their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and sweethearts.

They had last seen their regiment in the fierce charge from the crest of Snodgrass Hill. The burning questions were who had survived that terrible day? Who had been so badly wounded as to lose his place on the rolls? Who commanded the regiment and the companies? Who filled the non- commissioned offices? What voices that once rang out in command on the drill-ground, in camp and battle, were now silent, and whose would be lifted instead? "I'm af eared the old rijimint will never fight agin as it did at Stone River and Chickamauga," said Si mournfully. "Too many good men gone what made the rijimint what it is."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Shorty more hopefully. "They got two mighty good non-commish when they promoted me and you. If they done as well in the rest o' the promotions, the rijimint is all right. Lord knows I'd willingly give up my stripes to poor Jim Sanders, if he could come back; but I guess I kin yank around a squad as well as he done. This infant class that we're takin' down there ain't up to some o' the boys that've turned up their toes, but they average mighty well, and after we git some o' the coltishness drilled out o' 'em they'll be a credit to the rijimint."

The train finally halted on a side-track in the outskirts of Chattanooga, under the gigantic shadow of Lookout Mountain, and in the midst of an ocean of turmoiling activity that made the eyes ache to look upon it, and awed every one, even Si and Shorty, with a sense of incomprehensible immensity. As far as they could see, in every direction, were camps, forts, intrenchments, flags, hordes of men, trains of wagons, herds of cattle, innumerable horses, countless mules, mountains of boxes, barrels and bales. Immediately around them was a wilderness of trains, with noisy locomotives and shouting men. Regiments returning from veteran furlough, or entirely new ones, were disembarking with loud cheering, which was answered from the camps on the hillsides. On the river front steamboats were whistling and clanging their bells.

The boys, too much awed for speech, clustered around Si and Shorty and cast anxious glances at their faces.

"Great Jehosephat," murmured Shorty. "They seem to be all here."

"No," answered Si, as the cheers of a newly-arrived regiment rang out, "the back townships are still comin' in."

Monty Scruggs found tongue enough to quote:

"And ships by thousands lay below, And men by nations, all were his."

"Where in time do you s'pose the 200th Injianny is in all this freshet of men and mules and bosses?" said Si, with an anxious brow. The look made the boys almost terror-stricken. They huddled together and turned their glances toward Shorty for hope. But Shorty looked as puzzled as Si.

"Possibly," he suggested to Si, "the conductor will take us further up into the town, where we kin find somebody that we know, who'll tell us where the rijimint is."

"No," said the conductor, who came back at that moment; "I can't go no further with you. Just got my orders. You must pile right out here at once. They want the engine and empties in five minutes to take a load back to Nashville. Git your men out quick as you kin."

"Fall in," commanded Si. "Single rank. Foller me and Corpril Elliott. Keep well closed up, for if you git separated from us goodness knows what'll become o' you in this raft o' men."

The passage through the crowded, busy railroad yard was bewildering, toilsome, exciting and dangerous. The space between the tracks was scarcely more than wide enough for one man to pass, and the trains on either side would be moving in different directions. On the tracks that the boys crossed trains were going ahead or backing in entire regardlessness of them, and with many profane yells from the trainmen for them to get out of the way and keep out. Si only kept his direction by occasionally glancing over his shoulder and setting his face to walk in the direction away from Pulpit Rock, which juts out from the extremity of Lookout Mountain.

At last, after a series of hair-breadth dodges, Si drew up his squad in an open space where the tracks crossed, and proceeded to count them.

SI KLEGG SI AND SHORTY, WITH THEIR BOY RECRUITS, ENTER ON THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

By John McElroy

BOOK No. 6

PUBLISHED BY

THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE COMPANY,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

SECOND EDITION

COPYRIGHT 1915

frontispiece (98K)

titlepage (26K)

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

CONTENTS

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Preface

SI KLEGG

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XX. SHORTY IS ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE COURT-MARTIAL

ILLUSTRATIONS

Little Pete Found 13

He Ain't No Officer 27

You've Lost Little Pete 51

Them's Our Names and Addresses 59

Draw Your Stomachs In. 73

A Letter from Maria. 81

Close Up, Boys. 111

Don't Anybody Shoot. 119

Mr. Yank, Don't Conjure Me. 135

Little Pete's Awful Rebels. 149

Little Pete's Horse Bolts. 168

Capture of Rebel Stronghold. 185

The Charge Thru the Abatis. 211

Hooray for the Old Battery. 231

Awful Destruction. 241

Shorty Before the Court-martial. 256

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Preface

"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of The National Tribune.

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

The Publishers.

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

SI KLEGG

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I. SHORTY BEGINS BEING A FATHER TO PETE SKIDMORE

"Come, my boy," Si said kindly. "Don't cry. You're a soldier now, and soldiers don't cry. Stop it."

"Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' around."

"No, we won't," Si assured him. "You just keep with us and you'll be all right."

"Here, you blim-blammed, moon-eyed suckers, git offen that 'ere crossin'," yelled at them a fireman whose engine came tearing down toward the middle of the squad. "Hain't you got no more sense than to stand on a crossin'?"

He hurled a chunk of coal at the squad, which hastily followed Si to the other side of the track.

"Hello, there; where are you goin', you chuckle-headed clodhoppers?" yelled the men on another train rushing down from a different direction. "This ain't no hayfield. Go back home and drive cows, and git out o' the way o' men who're at work."

There was more scurrying, and when at last Si reached a clear space, he had only a portion of his squad with him, while Shorty was vowing he would not go a step farther until he had licked a railroad man. But the engines continued to whirl back and forth in apparently purposeless confusion, and the moment that he fixed upon any particular victim of his wrath, he was sure to be compelled to jump out of the way of a locomotive clanging up from an unexpected direction and interposing a train of freight cars between him and the man he was after.

Si was too deeply exercised about getting his squad together to pay attention to Shorty or the jeering, taunting railroaders. He became very fearful that some of them had been caught and badly hurt, probably killed, by the remorseless locomotives.

"This's wuss'n a battle," he remarked to the boys around him. "I'd ruther take you out on the skirmish-line than through them trains agin."

However, he had come to get some comprehension of the lay of the ground and the movements of the trains by this time, and by careful watching succeeded in gathering in his boys, one after another, until he had them all but little Pete Skidmore. The opinion grew among them that Pete had unwisely tried to keep up with the bigger boys, who had jumped across the track in front of a locomotive, and had been caught and crushed beneath the wheels. He had been seen up to a certain time, and then those who were last with him had been so busy getting out of the way that they had forgotten to look for him. Si calmed Shorty down enough to get him to forget the trainmen for awhile and take charge of the squad while he went to look for Pete. He had become so bewildered that he could not tell the direction whence they had come, or where the tragedy was likely to have happened. The farther he went in attempting to penetrate the maze of moving trains, the more hopeless the quest seemed. Finally he went over to the engineer of a locomotive that was standing still and inquired if he had heard of any accident to a boy soldier during the day.

"Seems to me that I did hear some o' the boys talkin' about No. 47 or 63 havin' run over a boy, or something," answered the engineer carelessly, without removing his pipe from his mouth. "I didn't pay no attention to it. Them things happen every day. Sometimes it's my engine, sometimes it's some other man's. But I hain't run over nobody for nigh a month now."

"Confound it," said Si savagely; "you talk about runnin' over men as if it was part o' your business."

"No," said the engineer languidly, as he reached up for his bell-rope. "'Tain't, so to speak, part o' our regler business. But the yard's awfully crowded, old Sherman's makin' it do five times the work it was calculated for, trains has got to be run on the dot, and men must keep off the track if they don't want to git hurt. Stand clear, there, yourself, for I'm goin' to start."

Si returned dejectedly to the place where he had left his squad. The expression of his face told the news before he had spoken a word. It was now getting dark, and he and Shorty decided that it was the best thing to go into bivouac where they were and wait till morning before attempting to penetrate the maze beyond in search of their regiment. They gathered up some wood, built fires, made coffee and ate the remainder of their rations. They were all horribly depressed by little Pete Skidmore's fate, and Si and Shorty, accustomed as they were to violent deaths, could not free themselves from responsibility however much they tried to reason it out as an unavoidable accident. They could not talk to one another, but each wrapped himself up in his blanket and sat moodily, a little distance from the fires, chewing the cud of bitter fancies. Neither could bear the thought of reporting to their regiment that they had been unable to take care of the smallest boy in their squad. Si's mind went back to Peter Skidmore's home, and his mother, whose heart would break over the news.

The clanging and whistling of the trains kept up unabated, and Si thought they made the most hateful din that ever assailed his ears.

Presently one of the trains stopped opposite them and a voice called from the locomotive:

"Do you men know of a squad of Injianny recruits commanded by Serg't Klegg?"

"Yes, here they are," said Si, springing up. "I'm Serg't Klegg."

Little Pete Found 13

"That's him," piped out Pete Skidmore's voice from the engine, with a very noticeable blubber of joy. "He's the same durned old-fool that I kept tellin' all the time he'd lose me if he wasn't careful, and he went and done it all the same."

"Well, here's your boy," continued the first voice. "Be mighty glad you've got him back and see that you take care o' him after this. My fireman run down on the cow-ketcher and snatched him up just in the nick o' time. A second more and he'd bin mince-meat. Men what can't take better care o' boys oughtn't to be allowed to have charge of 'em. But the Government gits all sorts o' damn fools for $13 a month."

Si was so delighted at getting Pete back unhurt that he did not have the heart to reply to the engineer's gibes.

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II. SI AND SHORTY COME VERY NEAR LOSING THEIR BOYS

ALL healthy boys have a strong tincture of the savage in them. The savage alternately worships his gods with blind, unreasoning idolatry, or treats them with measureless contumely.

Boys do the same with their heroes. It is either fervent admiration, or profound distrust, merging into actual contempt. After the successful little skirmish with the guerrillas the boys were wild in their enthusiasm over Si and Shorty. They could not be made to believe that Gens. Grant, Sherman or Thomas could conduct a battle better. But the moment that Si and Shorty seemed dazed by the multitude into which they were launched, a revulsion of feeling developed, which soon threatened to be ruinous to the partners' ascendancy.

During the uncomfortable, wakeful night the prestige of the partners still further diminished. In their absence the army had been turned topsy-turvy and reorganized in a most bewildering way. The old familiar guide-marks had disappeared. Two of the great corps had been abolished—consolidated into one, with a new number and a strange commander. Two corps of strange troops had come in from the Army of the Potomac, and had been consolidated into one, taking an old corps' number. Divisions, brigades and regiments had been totally changed in commanders, formation and position. Then the Army of the Tennessee had come in, to complicate the seeming muddle, and the more that Si and Shorty cross-questioned such stragglers as came by the clearer it seemed to the boys that they were hopelessly bewildered, and the more depressed the youngsters became.

The morning brought no relief. Si and Shorty talked together, standing apart from the squad, and casting anxious glances over the swirling mass of army activity, which the boys did not fail to note and read with dismal forebodings.

"I do believe they're lost," whimpered little Pete Skidmore. "What in goodness will ever become of us, if we're lost in this awful wilderness?"

The rest shuddered and grew pale at this horrible prospect.

"That looks like a brigade headquarters over there," said Si, pointing to the left. "And I believe that's our old brigade flag. I'm goin' over there to see."

"I don't believe that's any brigade headquarters at all," said Shorty. "Up there, to the right, looks ever so much more like a brigade headquarters. I'm goin' up there to see. You boys stay right there, and don't move off the ground till I come back. I won't be gone long."

As he left, the boys began to feel more lonely and hopeless than ever, and little Pete Skidmore had hard work to restrain his tears.

A large, heavy-jowled man, with a mass of black whiskers, and wearing a showy but nondescript uniform, appeared.

"That must be one o' the big Generals," said Harry Joslyn. "Looks like the pictures o' Grant. Git into line, boys, and salute."

"No, it ain't Grant, neither," said Gid Mackall. "Too big. Must be Gen. Thomas."

The awed boys made an effort to form a line and receive him properly.

"Who are you, boys?" said the newcomer, after gravely returning the salute.

"We're recruits for the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry," answered Harry Joslyn. "Kin you tell us where the rijimint is? We're lost.

"Used to know sich a regiment. In fact, I used to be Lieutenant-Colonel of it. But I hain't heared of it for a long time. Think it's petered out."

"Petered out!" gasped the boys.

"Yes. It was mauled and mummixed to death. There's plenty o' mismanagement all around the army, but the 200th Injianny had the worst luck of all. It got into awful bad hands. I quit it just as soon's I see how things was a-going. They begun to plant the men just as soon's they crossed the Ohio, and their graves are strung all the way from Louisville to Chickamauga. The others got tired o' being mauled around, and starved, and tyrannized over, and o' fighting for the nigger, and they skipped for home like sensible men."

The boys shuddered at the doleful picture.

"Who brung you here?" continued the newcomer.

"Sarjint Klegg and Corpril Elliott," answered Harry.

"Holy smoke," said the newcomer with a look of disgust. "They've made non-commish out o' them sapsuckers. Why, I wouldn't let them do nothin' but dig ditches when I was in command o' the regiment. But they probably had to take them. All the decent material was gone. How much bounty'd you get?"

"We got $27.50 apiece," answered Harry. "But we didn't care nothin' for the bounty. We—"

"Only $27.50 apiece. Holy smoke! They're payin' 10 times that in some places."

"I tell you, we didn't enlist for the bounty," reiterated Harry.

"All the same, you don't want to be robbed o' what's yours. You don't want to be skinned out o' your money by a gang o' snoozers who're gittin' rich off of green boys like you. Where's this Sarjint Klegg and Corpril Elliott that brung you here?"

"They've gone to look for the rijimint."

"Gone to look for the regiment. Much they've gone to look for the regiment. They've gone to look out for their scalawag selves. When you see 'em agin, you'll know 'em, that's all."

Little Pete Skidmore began to whimper.

"Say, boys," continued the newcomer, "you'd better drop all idee of that 200th Injianny and come with me. If there is any sich a regiment any more, and you get to it, you'd be sorry for it as long as you live. I know a man over here who's got a nice regiment, and wants a few more boys like you to fill it up. He'll treat you white and give you twice as much bounty as you'll git anywhere's else, and he's goin' to keep his regiment back in the fortifications, where there won't be no fightin', and hard marches, and starvation—"

"But we enlisted to fight and march, and—" interjected Harry.

"Well, you want a good breakfast just now, more'n anything else, judgin' from appearances. Come along with me and I'll git you something to eat."

"But we waz enlisted for the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry, and must go to that rijimint," protested Monty Scruggs.

"Well, what's that got to do with your havin' a good breakfast?" said the newcomer plausibly. "You need that right off. Then we kin talk about your regiment. As a matter of fact, you're only enlisted in the Army of the United States and have the right to go to any regiment you please. Tyrannical as the officers may be, they can't take that privilege of an American freeman away from you. Come along and git breakfast first."

The man's appearance was so impressive, his words and confident manner so convincing, and the boys so hungry that their scruples vanished, and all followed the late Lieut.-Col. Billings, as he gave the word, and started off through the mazes of the camp with an air of confident knowledge that completed his conquest of them.

Ex-Lieut.-Col. Billings strode blithely along, feeling the gladsome exuberance of a man who had "struck a good thing," and turning over in his mind as to where he had best market his batch of lively recruits, how he could get around the facts of their previous enlistment, and how much he ought to realize per head. He felt that he could afford to give the boys a good breakfast, and that that would be fine policy. Accordingly, he led the way to one of the numerous large eating houses, established by enterprising sutlers, to their own great profit and the shrinkage of the pay of the volunteers. He lined the boys up in front of the long shelf which served for a table and ordered the keeper:

"Now, give each of these boys a good breakfast of ham and eggs and trimmings and I'll settle for it."

"Good mornin', Kunnel. When 'd you git down here?" said a voice at his elbow.

"Hello, Groundhog, is that you?" said Billings, turning around. "Just the man I wanted to see. Finish your breakfast and come out here. I want to talk to you."

"Well," answered Groundhog, wiping his mouth, "I'm through. The feller that runs this shebang ain't made nothin' offen me, I kin tell you. It's the first square meal I've had for a week, and I've et until there ain't a crack left inside o' me that a skeeter could git his bill in. I laid out to git the wuth o' my money, and I done it. What're you doin' down here in this hole? Ain't Injianny good enough for you?"

"Injianny's good enough on general principles, but just now there's too much Abolition malaria there for me. The Lincoln satraps 've got the swing on me, and I thought I'd take a change of air. I've come down here to see if there weren't some chances to make a good turn, and I've done very well so far. I've done a little in cattle and got some cotton through the lines—enough at least to pay my board and railroad fare. But I think the biggest thing is in recruits, and I've got a scheme which I may let you into. You know there are a lot of agents down here from the New England States trying to git niggers to fill up their quotas, and they are paying big money for recruits. Can't you go out and gether up a lot o' niggers that we kin sell 'em?"

"Sure," said Groundhog confidently. "Kin git all you want, if you'll pay for 'em. But what's this gang you've got with you?"

"O, they're a batch for that blasted Abolition outfit, the 200th Injianny. Them two ornery galoots, Si and Shorty, whose necks I ought've broke when I was with the regiment, have brung 'em down. They're not goin' to git to the 200th Injianny if I kin help it, though. First place, it'll give old McBiddle, that Abolition varmint, enough to git him mustered as Colonel. He helped oust me, and I have it in for him. He was recommended for promotion for gittin' his arm shot off at Chickamauga. Wisht it'd bin his cussed head."

"But what're you goin' to do with the gang?" Groundhog inquired.

"O, there are two or three men around here that I kin sell 'em to for big money. I ought to make a clean thousand off 'em if I make a cent."

"How much'll I git out o' that?" inquired Groundhog anxiously.

"Well, you ain't entitled to nothin' by rights. I've hived this crowd all by myself, and kin work 'em all right. But if you'll come along and make any affidavits that we may need, I'll give you a sawbuck. But on the nigger lay I'll stand in even with you, half and half. You run 'em in and I'll place 'em and we'll whack up."

"'Tain't enough," answered Groundhog angrily. "Look here, Jeff Billings, I know you of old. You've played off on me before, and I won't stand no more of it. Jest bekase you've bin a Lieutenant-Colonel and me only a teamster you've played the high and mighty with me. I'm jest as good as you are any day. I wouldn't give a howl in the infernal regions for your promises. You come down now with $100 in greenbacks and I'll go along and help you all I kin. If you don't—"

"If I don't what'll you do, you lowlived whelp?" said Billings, in his usual brow-beating manner. "I only let you into this as a favor, because I've knowed you before. You hain't brains enough to make a picayune yourself, and hain't no gratitude when someone else makes it for you. Git out o' here; I'm ashamed to be seen speakin' to a mangy hound like you. Git out o' here before I kick you out. Don't you dare speak to one o' them boys, or ever to me agin. If you do I'll mash you. Git out."

Si and Shorty's dismay when they returned and found their squad entirely disappeared was overwhelming. They stood and gazed at one another for a minute in speechless alarm and wonderment.

"Great goodness," gasped Si at length, "they can't have gone far. They must be somewhere around."

"Don't know about that," said Shorty despairingly. "We've bin gone some little time and they're quick-footed little rascals."

"What fools we wuz to both go off and leave 'em," murmured Si in deep contrition. "What fools we wuz."

"No use o' cryin' over spilt milk," answered Shorty. "The thing to do now is to find 'em, which is very much like huntin' a needle in a haystack. You stay here, on the chance o' them comin' back, and I'll take a circle around there to the left and look for 'em. If I don't find 'em I'll come back and we'll go down to the Provo-Marshal's."

"Goodness, I'd rather be shot than go back to the rijimint without 'em," groaned Si. "How kin I ever face the Colonel and the rest o' the boys?"

Leaving Si gazing anxiously in every direction for some clew to his missing youngsters, Shorty rushed off in the direction of the sutler's shanties, where instinct told him he was most likely to find the runaways.

He ran up against Groundhog.

"Where are you goin' in sich a devil of a hurry?" the teamster asked. "Smell a distillery somewhere?"

"Hello, Groundhog, is that you? Ain't you dead yit? Say, have you seen a squad o' recruits around here—all boys, with new uniforms, and no letters or numbers on their caps?"

"Lots and gobs of 'em. Camp's full of 'em. More comin' in by every train."

"But these wuz all Injianny boys, most of 'em little. Not an old man among 'em."

"Shorty, I know where your boys are. What'll you give me to tell you?"

Shorty knew his man of old, and just the basis on which to open negotiations.

"Groundhog, I've just had my canteen filled with first-class whisky—none o' your commissary rotgut, but old rye, hand-made, fire-distilled. I got it to take out to the boys o' the rijimint to celebrate my comin' back. Le' me have just one drink out of it, and I'll give it to you if you'll tell."

Groundhog wavered an instant. "I wuz offered $10 on the other side."

Shorty was desperate. "I'll give you the whisky and $10."

"Le' me see your money and taste your licker."

"Here's the money," said Shorty, showing a bill. "I ain't goin' to trust you with the canteen, but I'll pour out this big spoon full, which'll be enough for you to taste." Shorty drew a spoon from his haversack and filled it level full.

"It's certainly boss licker," said Groundhog, after he had drunk it, and prudently hefted the canteen to see if it was full. "I'll take your offer. You're to have just one swig out o' it, and no more, and not a hog-swaller neither. I know you. You'd drink that hull canteenful at one gulp, if you had to. You'll let me put my thumb on your throat?"

"Yes, and I'll give you the canteen now and the money after we find the boys."

"All right. Go ahead. Drink quick, for you must go on the jump, or you'll lose your boys."

Shorty lifted the canteen to his lips and Groundhog clasped his throat with his thumb on Adam's apple. When Shorty got his breath he sputtered:

"Great Jehosephat, you didn't let me git more'n a spoonful. But where are the boys?"

"Old Jeff Billings's got 'em down at Zeke Wiggins's hash-foundry feedin' 'em, so's he kin toll 'em off into another rijimint."

"Old Billings agin," shouted Shorty in a rage. "Where's the place? Show it to me. But wait a minute till I run back and git my pardner."

"Gi' me that licker fust," shouted Groundhog, but Shorty was already running back for Si. When he returned with him he threw the canteen to Groundhog with the order, "Go ahead and show us the place."

By the time they came in sight of the sutler's shanty the boys had finished their breakfast and were moving off after Billings.

"There's your man and there's your boys," said Groundhog, pointing to them. "Now gi' me that 'ere sawbuck. You'll have to excuse me havin' anything to do with old Billings. He's licked me twice already."

Shorty shoved the bill into his hand, and rushed down in front of Billings.

"Here, you black-whiskered old roustabout, where 're you takin' them boys?" he demanded.

"Git out o' my way, you red-headed snipe," answered Billings, making a motion as if to brush him away.

"If you don't go off and leave them boys alone I'll belt you over the head with my gun," said Si, raising his musket.

"You drunken maverick," answered Billings, trying to brave it out. "I'll have you shot for insultin' and threatenin' your sooperior officer. Skip out o' here before the Provo comes up and ketches you. Let me go on about my business. Forward, boys."

"Officer nothin'. You can't play that on us," said Si. "Halt, there, boys, and stand fast."

A crowd of teamsters, sutlers' men and other camp followers gathered around. A tall, sandybearded man with keen, gray eyes and a rugged, stony face rode up. He wore a shabby slouch hat, his coat was old and weather-stained, but he rode a spirited horse.

"Here, what's all this row about?" he asked in quick, sharp tones.

"Keep out o' this mix," said Shorty, without looking around. "'Tain't none o' your business. This is our party." With that he made a snatch at Billings's collar to jerk him out of the way.

"What, you rascal, would you assault an officer?" said the newcomer, spurring his horse through the crowd to get at Shorty.

He Ain't No Officer 27

"He ain't no officer, General," said Si, catching sight of two dim stars on the man's shoulders. "He's tryin' to steal our recruits from us."

"Yes, I am an officer," said Billings, avoiding Shorty's clutch. "These men are assaultin' me while I'm on duty. I want them arrested and punished."

"Fall back there, both of you," said the General severely, as Si and Shorty came to a present arms. "Sergeant, who are you, and where do you belong?"

"I'm Serg't Klegg, sir, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."

"Who are you, Corporal?"

"I'm Corp'l Elliott, sir, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."

"Now, officer, who are you?"

"I'm Lieut.-Col. Billings, sir."

"Where's your shoulder-straps?"

"I had 'em taken off this coat to git fixed. They were torn."

"Where's your sword?"

"I left it in my quarters."

"Fine officer, to go on duty that way. Where do you belong?"

Billings hesitated an instant, but he felt sure that the General did not belong to the Army of the Cumberland, and he answered:

"I belong to the 200th Ind."

"That ain't true, General," Si protested. "He was fired out of the regiment a year ago. He's a citizen."

"Silence, Sergeant. Billings? Billings? The name of the Lieutenant- Colonel of the 200th Ind. happens to be McBiddle—one-armed man, good soldier. Billings? Billings? T. J. Billings? Is that your name?"

"Yes, sir," answered Billings, beginning to look very uncomfortable.

"Didn't you have some trouble about a bunch of cattle you sold to the Quartermaster-General?"

"Well, there was little difference of opinion, but—"

"That'll do, sir. That'll do for the present. I begin to get you placed. I thought I knew the name Billings as soon as you spoke it, but I couldn't remember any officer in my army of that name. Now, Sergeant, tell me your story."

"General, me and my pardner here," began Si, "have bin home on wounded furlough. Wounded at Chickamauga and promoted. We got orders to bring on this squad o' recruits from Jeffersonville for our rijimint. We got in last night and this mornin' me and my pardner started out to see if we could find someone to direct us to the rijimint, leavin' the squad alone for a few minutes. While we wuz gone this feller, who's bin fired out of our rijimint and another one that he was in, come along and tolled our boys off, intendin' to sneak 'em into another rijimint and git pay for 'em. By great good luck we ketched him in time, just before you come up. You kin ask the boys themselves if I hain't told you the truth."

"Good idea," said the General, in his quick, peremptory way. "You three (indicating Si, Shorty and Billings) march off there 25 paces, while I talk to the boys."

Gen. Sherman, for it was the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, who, with his usual impetuous, thorough way, would investigate even the most insignificant affair in his camps, when the humor seized him, now sprang from his horse, and began a sharp, nervous cross-questioning of the boys as to their names, residence, ages, how they came there and whither they were bound.

"You came down with this Sergeant and Corporal, did you? You were recruited for the 200th Ind., were you? You were put under the charge of those men to be taken to your regiment?" he asked Pete Skidmore, at the end of the line.

"Yes, sir," blubbered Pete. "And they are always losin' us, particularly me, durn 'em. Spite of all I kin say to 'em they'll lose me, durn their skins."

"No, my boy, you sha'n't be lost," said the General kindly, as he remounted. "Stick to our command and you'll come through all right. Billings, you thorough-paced rascal, I want you to get to the other side of the Ohio River as quickly as the trains will carry you. I haven't time to deal with you as you deserve, but if I have occasion to speak to you again you'll rue it as long as you live. There's a train getting ready to go out. If you are wise, you'll take it. Serg't Klegg and Corp'l Elliott, you deserve to lose your stripes for both of you leaving your squad at the same time. See that you don't do it again. You'll find the 200th Ind. in camp on the east side of Mission Ridge, about a mile south of Rossville Gap. Go out this road until you pass old John Ross's house about a half a mile. You'll find several roads leading off to the right, but don't take any of them till you come to one that turns off by a sweet gum and a honey-locust standing together on the banks of a creek. Understand? A sweet gum and a honey-locust standing together on the banks of a creek. Turn off there, go across the mountain and you'll find your camp. Move promptly now."

"I declare," said a big Wagonmaster, as the General galloped off, "if that old Gump Sherman don't beat the world. He not only knows where every regiment in his whole army is located, but I believe he knows every man in it. He's a far-reacher, I tell you."

"Great Jehosephat," gasped Shorty, "was that Gen. Tecumseh Sherman?"

"As sure 's you're a foot high," replied the Wagonmaster.

"And I told him to mind his own business," stammered Shorty.

"Yes, and if it hadn't bin for him you'd 'a' lost us, durn it," ejaculated little Pete Skidmore.

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III. THE PARTNERS GET BACK TO THEIR REGIMENT AT LAST WITH ALL THEIR RECRUITS

SI AND SHORTY were too glad to get their boys back, and too eager to find their regiment, to waste any time in scolding the derelicts.

"Now that you boys have had a good breakfast," Si remarked with an accent of cutting sarcasm, "at the expense of that kind-hearted gentleman, Mr. Billings, I'm goin' to give you a pleasant little exercise in the shape of a forced march. If you don't make the distance between here and the other side o' Rossville Gap quicker'n ary squad has ever made it I'm much mistaken. Shorty, put yourself on the left and bring up the rear."

"You bet," answered Shorty, "and I'll take durned good care I don't lose little Pete Skidmore."

"Now," commanded Si, getting a good lay of the ground toward the gap, "Attention. All ready? Forward, march."

He led off with the long march stride of the veteran, and began threading his way through the maze of teams, batteries, herds, and marching men and stragglers with the ease and certainty born of long acquaintance with crowded camps. He dodged around a regiment here, avoided a train there, and slipped through a marching battery at the next place with a swift, unresting progress that quickly took away the boys' wind and made them pant with the exertion of keeping up.

In the rear was the relentless Shorty.

"Close up, there! Close up!" he kept shouting to those in front. "Don't allow no gaps between you. Keep marchin' distance—19 inches from back to breast. Come along, Pete. I ain't a-goin' to lose you, no matter what happens."

"Sarjint," gasped flarry Joslyn, after they had gone a couple of miles, "don't you call this purty fast marchin'?"

"Naah," said Si contemptuously. "We're just crawlin' along. Wait till we git where it's a little clear, and then we'll go. Here, cut acrost ahead o' that battery that's comin' up a-trot."

There was a rush for another mile or two, when there was a momentary halt to allow a regiment of cavalry to go by at a quick walk.

"Goodness," murmured Gid Mackall, as he set down the carpet-sack which he would persist in carrying, "are they always in a hurry? I s'posed that when soldiers wuzzent marchin' or fightin' they lay around camp and played cards and stole chickens, and wrote letters home, but everybody 'round here seems on the dead rush."

"Don't seem to be nobody pic-nickin' as far's I kin see," responded Si, "but we hain't no time to talk about it now. We must git to the rijimint. Forward!"

Another swift push of two or three miles brought them toward the foot of Mission Ridge, and near the little, unpainted frame house which had once been the home of John Ross, the chief of the Cherokees.

"Boys, there's the shebang or palace of the big Injun who used to be king of all these mountains and valleys," said Si, stopping the squad to give them a much needed rest. "He run this whole country, and had Injuns to burn, though he generally preferred to burn them that didn't belong to his church."

"Roasted his neighbors instid o' his friends in a heathen sort of a way," continued Shorty.

"What was his name?" inquired Monty Scruggs.

"John Ross."

"Humph, not much of a name," said Monty in a disappointed tone, for he had been an assiduous reader of dime novels. "'Tain't anything like as fine as Tecumseh, and Osceola, and Powhatan, and Jibbeninosay, and Man- Afraid-of-Gettin'-His-Neck-Broke. Wasn't much of a big Injun."

"Deed he was," answered Si. "He and his fathers before him run' this whole neck o' woods accordin' to the big Injun taste, and give the Army o' the United States all they wanted to do. Used to knock all the other Injuns around here about like ten-pins. The Rosses were bosses from the word go."

"Don't sound right, though," said Monty regretfully. "And such a shack as that don't look like the wigwam of a great chief. 'Tain't any different from the hired men's houses on the farms in Injianny."

"Well, all the same, it's got to go for the scene of a cord o' dime novels," said Shorty. "We've brung in civilization and modern improvements and killed more men around here in a hour o' working time than the ignorant, screechin' Injuns killed since the flood."

"Do them rijimints look like the 200th Injianny?" anxiously inquired Harry Joslyn, pointing to some camps on the mountain-side, where the men were drilling and engaged in other soldierly duties.

"Them," snorted Shorty contemptuously. "Them's only recruits that ain't got licked into shape yet. When you see the 200th Injianny you'll see a rijimint, I tell you. Best one in the army. You ought to be mighty proud you got a chanst to git into sich a rijimint."

"We are; we are," the boys assured him. "But we're awful anxious to see jest what it's like."

"Well, you'll see in a little while the boss lot o' boys. Every one of 'em fightin' cocks, thoroughbred—not a dunghill feather or strain in the lot. Weeded 'em all out long ago. All straight-cut gentlemen. They'll welcome you like brothers and skin you out of every cent o' your bounty, if you play cards with 'em. They're a dandy crowd when it comes to fingerin' the pasteboards. They'll be regler fathers to you, but you don't want to play no cards with 'em."

"I thought you said they wuz all gentlemen and would be regler brothers to us," said Harry Joslyn.

"So they will—so they will. But your brother's the feller that you've got to watch clostest when he's settin' in front o' you with one little pair. He's the feller that's most likely to know all you know about the cards and what he knows besides. They've bin skinnin' one another so long that they'll be as anxious to git at your fresh young blood as a New Orleans skeeter is to sink into a man just from the North."

"Didn't think they'd allow gambling in so good a regiment as the 200th Ind.," remarked Alf Russell, who was a devoted attendant on Sunday school.

"Don't allow it. It's strictly prohibited."

"But I thought that in the army you carried out orders, if you had to kill men."

"Well, there's orders and orders," said Shorty, philosophically. "Most of 'em you obey to the last curl on the letter R, and do it with a jump. Some of 'em you obey only when you have to, and take your chances at improving the State o' Tennessee by buildin' roads and diggin' up stumps in the parade ground if you're ketched not mindin'. Of them kind is the orders agin gamblin'."

"Shorty, stop talkin' to the boys about gamblin'. I won't have it," commanded Si. "Boys, you mustn't play cards on no account, especially with older men. It's strictly agin orders, besides which I'll break any o' your necks that I ketch at it. You must take care o' your money and send it home. Forward, march."

They went up the road from the John Ross house until they came to that turning off to the right by a sweet gum and a sycamore, as indicated by Gen. Sherman, and then began a labored climbing of the rough, stony way across Mission Ridge. Si's and Shorty's eagerness to get to the regiment increased so with their nearness to it that they went at a terrific pace in spite of all obstacles.

"Please, Sarjint," begged Gid Mackall, as they halted for an instant near a large rock, "need we go quite so fast? We're awfully anxious to git to the regiment, too, but I feel like as if I'd stove two inches offen my legs already against them blamed rocks."

"I can't keep up. I can't keep up at all," whimpered little Pete Skidmore. "You are just dead certain to lose me."

"Pull out just a little more, boys," Si said pleasantly. "We must be almost there. It can't be but a little ways now."

"Close up there in front!" commanded Shorty. "Keep marchin' distance—19 inches from back to breast. Come on, Pete. Gi' me your hand; I'll help you along."

"I ain't no kid, to be led along by the hand," answered Pete sturdily, refusing the offer. "I'll keep up somehow. But you can't expect my short legs to cover as much ground as them telegraph poles o' your'n."

The summit of the ridge was crossed and a number of camps appeared along the slope.

"Wonder which one o' them is the 200th Injianny's?" said Si to Shorty.

"I thought the 200th Injianny was so much finer rijimint than any other that you'd know it at sight," said Harry Joslyn, with a shade of disappointment in his voice.

"I would know it if I was sure I was lookin' at it," answered Shorty. "But they seem to have picked out all the best rijimints in the army to go into camp here this side o' Mission Ridge. Mebbe they want to make the best show to the enemy."

"That looks like the camp o' the 200th Injianny over there," said Si, pointing to the right, after scanning the mountain-side. "See all them red shirts hangin' out to dry? That's Co. A; they run to red flannel shirts like a nigger barber to striped pants."

"No," answered Shorty; "that's that Ohio rijimint, made up o' rollin' mill men and molders. They all wear red flannel shirts. There's the 200th Injianny just down there to the left, with all them men on extra duty on the parade ground. I know just the gang. Same old crowd; I kin almost tell their faces. They've bin runnin' guard, as usual, and comin' back full o' apple-jack and bad language and desire to give the camp a heavy coat o' red paint. Old McBiddle has tried to convince 'em that he was still runnin' the rijimint, and his idees wuz better 'n theirs, and there they are. There's Jim Monaghan handlin' that pick as if he was in the last stages o' consumption. There's Barney' Maguire, pickin' up three twigs 'bout as big as lead pencils, and solemnly carryin' 'em off the parade ground as if they wuz fence-rails. I'll just bet a month's pay that's Denny Murphy marchin' up and down there with his knapsack filled with Tennessee dornicks. Denny's done that feather-weight knapsack trick so often that his shoulders have corns and windgalls on 'em, and they always keep a knapsack packed for him at the guard-house ready for one of his Donnybrook fair songs and dances. Mighty good boy, Denny, but he kin git up a red-hotter riot on his share of a canteen of apple-jack than any three men in the rijimint. That feller tied to a tree is Tony Wilson. He's refused to dig trenches agin. O, I tell you, they're a daisy lot."

"Shorty," admonished Si. "You mustn't talk that way before the boys. What'll they think o' the rijimint?"

"Think of it?" said Shorty, recovering himself. "They've got to think of it as the very best rijimint that ever stood in line-of-battle. I'll punch the head of any man that says anything to the contrary. Every man in it is a high-toned, Christian gentleman. Mind that, now, every one of you brats, and don't you allow nobody to say otherwise."

"No," said Si, after further study of the camps, "neither o' them 's the 200th Injianny. They've both got brass bands. Must be new rijimints."

"Say," said Shorty, "there's a royal lookin' rooster standin' up in front of that little house there. Looks as if the house was headquarters for some highroller, and him doin' Orderly duty. If he knows as much as he's got style, he knows more'n old Sherman himself. Go up and ask him."

It was the first time in all their service that either of them had seen a soldier in the full dress prescribed by the United States Army regulations, and this man had clearly won the coveted detail of Orderly by competition with his comrades as being the neatest, best-dressed man in the squad. He was a tall, fine-looking young man, wearing white gloves and a paper collar, with a spotless dress coat buttoned to the chin, his shoes shining like mirrors, his buttons and belt-plates like new gold, and his regulation hat caught up on the left side with a feather and a gilt eagle. The front of his hat was a mass of gilt letters and figures and a bugle, indicating his company, regiment and State. On his breast was a large, red star.

"Jehosephat," sighed Shorty. "I wish I had as many dollars as he has style. Must be one of old Abe's body guards, sent out here with Grant's commission as Lieutenant-General. Expect that red star passes him on the railroads and at the hotels. I'd like to play him two games out o' three, cut-throat, for it. I could use it in my business."

"No," said the Orderly to Si, with a strong Yankee twang, "I don't know a mite about the 200th Ind. Leastwise, I don't remember it. Everybody down here's from Indiana, Ohio or Illinois. It's one eternal mix, like Uncle Jed Stover's fish—couldn't tell shad, herring nor sprat from one another. It seems to me more like a 'tarnal big town-meeting than an army. All talk alike, and have got just as much to say; all act alike. Can't tell where an Indiana regiment leaves off and Ohio one begins; can't tell officer from private, everybody dresses as he pleases, and half of them don't wear anything to tell where they belong. There wasn't a corps badge in the whole army when we come here."

"Corps badges—what's them?" asked Si.

"Corps badges? Why this is one," said the man, tapping his red star. "This shows I belong to the Twelfth Corps—best corps in the Army of the Potomac, and the First Division—best division in the corps. We have to wear them so's to show our General which are his men, and where they be. Haven't you no corps badges?"

"Our General don't have to tag us," said Shorty, who had come up and listened. "He knows all of us that's worth knowin', and that we'll go wherever he orders us, and stay there till he pulls us off. Our corps badge's a full haversack and Springfield rifle sighted up to 1,200 yards."

"Well, you do fight in a most amazing way," said the Orderly, cordially. "We never believed it of such rag-tag and bobtail until we saw you go up over Mission Ridge. You were all straggling then, but you were straggling toward the enemy. Never saw such a mob, but it made the rebels sick."

"Well, if you'd seen us bustin' your old friend Long-street at Snodgrass Hill, you'd seen some hefightin'. We learned him that he wasn't monkeyin' with the Army o' the Potomac, but with fellers that wuz down there for business, and not to wear paper collars and shine their buttons. He come at us seven times before we could git that little fact through his head, and we piled up his dead like cordwood."

"Well, you didn't do any better than we did with Early's men at Gulp's Hill, if we do wear paper collars," returned the other proudly. "After we got through with Johnston's Division you couldn't see the ground in front for the dead and wounded. And none of your men got up on Lookout Mountain any quicker'n we did. Paper collars and red stars showed you the way right along."

"My pardner's only envious because he hain't no paper collars nor fine clothes," said Si, conciliatorily. "I've often told him that if he'd leave chuck-a-luck alone and save his money he'd be able to dress better'n Gen. Grant."

"Gen. Grant's no great shakes as a dresser," returned the other. "I was never so surprised in my life as one day when I was Orderly at Division Headquarters, and a short man with a red beard, and his clothes spattered with mud, rode up, followed by one Orderly, and said, 'Orderly, tell the General that Gen. Grant would like to see him.' By looking hard I managed to make out three stars on his shoulder. Why, if Gen. McClellan had been coming you'd have seen him for a mile before he got there."

"If Gen. Grant put on as much style in proportion to what he done as McClellan, you could see him as far as the moon," ventured Shorty.

"Well, we're not gettin' to the rijimint," said the impatient Si. "Le's rack on. So long, Orderly. Come and see us in the 200th Injianny and we'll treat you white. Forward, march!"

"There's a couple of boys comin' up the road. Probably they kin tell us where the rijimint is," suggested Shorty.

The two boys were evidently recruits of some months' standing, but not yet considered seasoned soldiers.

"No," they said, "there is no 200th Ind. here now. It was here yesterday, and was camped right over there, where you see that old camp, but before noon came an order to march with three days' rations and 40 rounds. It went out the Lafayette Road, and the boys seemed to think they wuz goin' out to Pigeon Mountain to begin the general advance o' the army, and wuz mightily tickled over it."

"Gone away," said Si, scanning the abandoned camp sadly; "everybody couldn't have gone. They must've left somebody behind that wasn't able to travel, and somebody to take care o' 'em. They must've left some rijimintal stuff behind and a guard over it."

"No," the boys assured him. "They broke up camp completely. All that wasn't able to march was sent to the hospital in Chattynoogy. Every mite of stuff was loaded into wagons and hauled off with 'em. They never expected to come back."

"That camp ground don't look as it'd bin occupied for two weeks," said Shorty. "See the ruts made by the rain in the parade ground and the general look o' things. I don't believe the rijimint only left there yisterday. It don't look as if the 200th Injianny ever had sich a camp. It's more like one o' the camps o' them slack-twisted Kaintucky and Tennessee rijimints."

"If Oi didn't belave that Si Klegg and Sharty was did intoirely, and up home in Injianny, Oi'd be sure that was their v'ices," said a voice from the thicket by the side of the road. The next instant a redheaded man, with a very distinct map of Ireland in his face, leaped out, shouting:

041 (105K)

"Si and Sharty, ye thieves of the worruld, whin did ye get back, and how are yez? Howly saints, but Oi'm glad to see yez."

"Jim Monaghan, you old Erin-go-bragh," said Shorty, putting his arm around the man's neck, "may I never see the back o' my neck, but I'm glad to see you. I was just talkin' about you. I thought I recognized you over there in one of the camps, at your favorite occupation of extry dooty, cleanin' up the parade ground."

"No; Oi've not bin on extry doty for narely two wakes now, but it's about due. But here comes Barney Maguire and Con Taylor, Tony Wilson and the rest iv the gang. Lord love yez, but they'll be surely glad to see yez."

The others came up with a tumultuous welcome to both.

"Where's the camp?" asked Si.

"Jist bey ant—jist bey ant them cedars there—not a musket-shot away," answered Jim, pointing to the place.

"What'd you mean, you infernal liars, by tellin' us that the rijimint was gone?" said Shorty, wrathfully to the men whom he had met, and who were still standing near, looking puzzled at the demonstrations.

"Aisy, now, aisy," said Jim. "We're to blame for that, so we are. Ye say, we wint over by Rossville last night and had a bit av a shindy and cleaned out a sutler's shop. We brought away some av the most illegant whisky that iver wet a man's lips, and hid it down there in the gulch, where we had jist come back for it. We sane you comin' and thought yez was the provo-guard after us. Ye say ye stopped there and talked to that peacock at the Provo-Marshal's quarters, and we thought yez was gittin' instructions. We sint these rookies out, who we thought nobody'd know, to give you a little fairy story about the rijimint being gone, to throw you off the scint, until we could finish the liquor."

"Yes, I know," laughed Shorty, "after you'd got the budge down you didn't care what happened. You're the same old brick-topped Connaught Ranger."

"You and Si come down into the gulch and jine us."

"Can't think of it for a minute," said Shorty with great self-denial. "Don't speak so loud before these boys. They're recruits for the rijimint. We must take 'em into camp. We'll see you later."

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IV. THE RECRUITS ARE ASSIGNED TO COMPANIES

THE strangest feeling possessed Si and Shorty when once in the camp of their old regiment, and after the first hearty welcome of their comrades was over.

There was a strangeness about everything that they could not comprehend.

It was their regiment—the 200th Ind.; it was made up of the same companies, with the great majority of the men the same, but it was very far from being the 200th Ind. which crossed the Ohio River in September, 1862.

Marvelous changes had been wrought by 18 months' tuition in the iron school of war, in the 10 separate herds of undisciplined farmer boys which originally constituted the regiment. Yellow, downy beards appeared on faces which had been of boyish smoothness when the river was crossed, but this was only one of the minor changes. There was an alertness, a sureness, a self-confidence shining from eyes which was even more marked. Every one carried himself as if he knew precisely what he was there for, and intended doing it. There was enough merriment around camp, but it was very different from the noisy rollicking of the earlier days. The men who had something to do were doing it with systematic earnestness; the men who had nothing to do were getting as much solid comfort and fun as the situation afforded. The frothy element among officers and men had been rigorously weeded out or repressed. All that remained were soldiers in the truest sense of the word. The change had been very great even since the regiment had lined up for the fearful ordeal of Chickamauga.

"Did you ever see a gang o' half-baked kids get to be men as quick as these boys?" Si asked Shorty. "Think o' the awkward squads that used to be continually fallin' over their own feet, and stabbing theirselves with their own bayonets."

"Seems so," answered Shorty, "but I don't know that they've growed any faster'n we have. Walt Slusser, who's bin Orderly at Headquarters, says that he heard Capt. McGillicuddy tell Col. McBiddle that he'd never seen men come out as me and you had, and he thought we'd make very effective noncommish."

"Probably we've all growed," Si assented thoughtfully. "Just think o' McBiddle as Lieutenant-Colonel, in place o' old Billings. Remember the first time we saw McBiddle to know him? That time he was Sergeant o' the Guard before Perryville, and was so gentle and soft-spoken that lots o' the boys fooled themselves with the idee that he lacked sand. Same fellers thought that old bellerin' bull Billings was a great fightin' man. What chumps we all wuz that we stood Billings a week."

"Wonder if I'm ever goin' to have a chanst for a little private sociable with Billings? Just as I think I'm goin' to have it, something interferes. That feller's bin so long ripe for a lickin' that I'm afraid he'll be completely spiled before my chanst comes."

"But I can't git over missin' so many familiar voices in command, and hearin' others in their places," said Si. "That battalion drill they wuz havin' as we come in didn't sound like our rijimint at all. I could always tell which was our rijimint drillin' half a mile away by the sound of the voices. What a ringin' voice Capt. Scudder had. It beat the bugle. You could hear him sing out, 'Co. C, on right, into line! Forward, guide right—March!' farther'n you could the bugle. The last time I heard him wuz as we wuz' going up Snodgrass Hill. A rebel bullet went through his head just as he said, 'March!' Now, Lieut. Scripps is in command o' Co. C, and he's got a penny-whistle voice that I can't git used to."

"Lieut. Scripps's a mighty good man. He'll take Co. C as far as Capt. Scudder would."

"I know that Scripps's all right. No discount on him. But it don't seem natural, that's all. Every one o' the companies except ours has a new man in command, and in ours Capt. McGillicuddy's voice has got a different ring to it than before Chickamaugy."

"Practicin' to command the battalion," suggested Shorty. "You know he'll be Major if McBiddle's made a full Kurnel."

"That reminds me," said Shorty, "that our squad o' recruits'll probably fill up the rijimint so's to give McBiddle his eagle. They'll be 'round presently to divide up the squad and assign 'em to companies. As all the companies is about equally strong, they'll divide 'em equally—that'll make six and one-half boys to each company. Capt. McGillicuddy bein' the senior Captain, is to have first choice. We want to pick out the best six and one-half for our company and put 'em in one squad at the right or left, and give the Captain the wink to choose 'em."

"If we do it's got to be done mighty slick," said Si. "They're all mighty good boys, and spunky. They'll all want to go with us, and if they find out we've made any choice they'll never forgive us. I'd a'most as soon have one six boys as another, yit if I had to pick out six I believe I'd take Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall, Alf Russell, Monty Scruggs, Jim Humphreys and Sandy Baker."

"And Pete Skidmore," added Shorty. "We've got to take special care o' that little rat. Besides, I want to. Somehow I've took quite a fancy to the brat."

"Yes, we must take little Pete," assented Si. "The proportion's six and one-half to a company. He 'll pass for the half man. But it won't do to let him know it. He thinks he's as big as any man in the rijimint. But how're we goin' to fix it not to let the other boys know that we've picked 'em out?"

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Shorty, the man of many wiles. "When the boys are drawed up in line and Capt. McGillicuddy goes down it to pick 'em out, you stand at attention, two paces in front, facin' 'em and lookin' as severe and impartial as a judge on the bench. I'll stand behind you with my leg against your'n, this way, and apparently fixing my gun-lock. When Cap comes in front o' one that we want, yo give me a little hunch with your leg, and I'll make the lock click."

"Splendid idee," said Si. "I'll go and post the Cap while you git the boys into line."

When Shorty returned to the squad he found them in feverish excitement about the distribution to the different companies. As he and Si had apprehended, all were exceedingly anxious to go with them into Co. Q, which Si and Shorty had unwittingly impressed upon them was the crack company of the regiment, and contained the very cream of the men. To be assigned to any other company seemed to them, if not an actual misfortune, a lack of good luck.

"Nonsense," Shorty replied to their eager entreaties; "all the companies in the 200th Injianny is good, prime, first-class—better'n the companies in ary other rijimint. You're playin' in great luck to git into any one o' 'em, I tell you. You might've got into one o' 'em rijimints that're back there at Nashville guardin' fortifications, or one o' 'em that lost their colors at Chickamaugy. I'd ruther be the tail end o' the 200th Injianny, than the Drum Major o' any other."

"That's all right," they shouted. "We're glad we're in the 200th Injianny, but we want to be in Co. Q."

"Well, you can't all be in Co. Q. Only six and one-half of you. The rest's got to go to other companies."

"Say, Corpril," spoke up Harry Joslyn, "you'll see that I git in, won't you? You know I shot that rebel at the burnt bridge."

"And didn't I shoot one, too?" put in Gid Mackall. "Just as much as you did. They want tall men in the company, don't they, Corpril? Not little runts."

"And didn't I watch the crossing down there at the burnt bridge?" pleaded Jim Humphreys.

"And git scared to death by a nigger huntin' coons," laughed the others.

"Who kept the rebel from gittin' back to the train and settin' it on fire, but me and Sandy Baker?" piped up little Pete Skidmore. "Who got lost, and nearly killed by a locomotive. Don't that count for nothin'?"

You've Lost Little Pete 51

"Boys," said Shorty, leaning on his musket, and speaking with the utmost gravity, "this's a great military dooty and must be performed without fear, favor nor affection. I'd like to have you all in Co. Q, but this's a thing 'bout which I hain't got no say. There's a great many things in the army 'bout which a Corpril hain't as much inflooence as he orter have, as you'll find out later on. Here comes the Captain o' Co. Q, who, because o' his rank, has the first pick o' the recruits. He's never seen you before, and don't know one o' you from Adam's off-ox. He has his own ideas as to who he wants in the company, and what he says goes. It may be that the color o' your hair'll decide him, mebbe the look in your eyes, mebbe the shape o' your noses. 'Tention! Right dress! Front! Saloot!"

Capt. McGillicuddy came down at the head of the company officers of the regiment, and took a comprehensive survey of the squad.

"Fine-looking lot of youngsters," he remarked. "They'll make good soldiers."

"Every one o' them true-blue, all wool and a yard wide. Captain," said Si.

"You'll play fair, now, Captain, won't you, and choose for yourself?" said Capt. Scripps. "I've no doubt they're all good boys, but there's a choice in good boys, and that Sergeant of yours has learned where the choice is. You let him stay back, while you go down the line yourself."

"Certainly," replied Capt. McGillicuddy. "Serg't Klegg, stay where you are."

Si saluted and took his position, facing the line, with a look of calm impartiality upon his face. Shorty turned around and backed up to him so that the calves of their legs touched, and began intently studying his gunlock.

Capt. McGillicuddy stepped over to the right of the line stopped in front of Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall. Shorty full-cocked his gun with two sharp clicks.

"You two step forward one pace," said Capt. McGillicuddy to the two radiant boys, who obeyed with a jump. The Captain walked on down the line, carefully scrutinizing each one, but did not stop until Shorty's gun clicked twice, when he was in front of Alf Russell and Monty Scruggs.

"Step forward one pace," he commanded.

He proceeded on down the line until he came in front of Jim Humphreys and Sandy Baker, when Shorty's gun clicked again.

"You two step forward one pace," he commanded. "Gentleman, I've got my six. The rest are yours."

"But you hain't got me. You've lost me," screamed Pete Skidmore, dismayed at being separated from Sandy Baker. Shorty's gun clicked again.

"I believe that there is a fraction of a half a man to be distributed around," the Captain said, turning to the other officers. "We agreed to draw cuts for that choice. But as that's the smallest boy in the lot I'll take him for my fraction. I think that's fair. Step forward, there, you boy on the left."

"All right Captain," laughed Capt. Scripps. "You've got the pick of the men, and I'm glad of it.

"I know you have, for I've been watching that Corporal of yours. I know him of old. I've played cards too often with Shorty not to keep my eye on him whenever he is around. I saw through that gun-lock trick."

"The trouble with you fellows," responded Capt. McGillicuddy, "is that you are constantly hunting around for some reason rather than the real one for Co. Q being always ahead of you. It isn't my fault that Co. Q is the best company in the regiment. It simply comes natural to the men that make up the company. You gentlemen divide up the rest among you, and then come down to the sutler's and we'll talk the matter over. Serg't Klegg, take these men down to the company and have the Orderly provide for them."

"Hello, awful glad to see you back—and you, too, Shorty," said the busy Orderly-Sergeant, speaking in his usual short, snappy sentences, without using any more words than absolutely necessary. "We need you. Short of non-commish. Two Sergeants off on detached duty and two Corporals in hospital. Being worked for all we're worth. Both of you look fine. Had a nice, long rest. In great shape for work. Pitch in, now, and help me. First, let's get the names of these kids on the roll. Humphreys—we've got two other Humphreys, so you'll answer to Humphreys, 3d.

"But I don't want to be with the Humphreys, sir," broke in Jim. "Me and Monty Scruggs—"

"Hold your tongue," said the Orderly sharply. "Don't interrupt me. If you speak when you're spoken to you'll do all the talking expected of you.

"Joslyn, you're after Jones, 3d. M—M—Mackall, you come after Lawrence."

"But you've put me after Joslyn," protested Gid. "He's never ahead of me."

"Shut up," answered the Orderly. "I do the talking for this company. Russell, Scruggs, Skidmore; there, I've got 'em all down. Si, go down toward Co. A and find Bill Stiles and walk him up to the guard-tent and leave him there to cool off. He's got his hide full of coffin varnish somewhere, and of course wants to settle an old score with that Co. A man, who'll likely knock his head off if he catches him. Shorty, go back there to the cook tent and shake up those cooks. Give it to them, for they're getting lazier every day. I want supper ready as soon's we come off dress parade. Here, you boys, trot along after me to the Quartermaster's tent, and draw your blankets, tents, haversacks and canteens. Shorty, as soon's you're through with the cooks, go to the left of the company and start to fixing up a place for these boys' tents. Si, get back as soon's you can, for I want you to take the squad down after rations. Then you'll have to relieve Jake Warder as Sergeant of the Guard, for Jake's hardly able to be around."

The Orderly strode off toward the Quartermaster's tent at such a pace that it gave the boys all they could do to keep up with him. Arriving there he called out sharply to the Quartermaster-Sergeant:

"Wes, give me seven blankets."

That official responded by tossing the required number, one after another, counting them as he did so. As the Orderly caught them he tossed them to the boys, calling their names. Gid Mackall happened to be looking at a battery of artillery when his name was called, and received the blanket on the back of his neck, knocking him over.

"'Tend to your business, there; don't be gawking around," said the Orderly sternly. "Now, Wes, seven halves of pup-tents."

These were tossed and counted the same way. Then followed canteens, haversacks and tin plates and cups.

"Now, boys, there's your kits. Give you your guns tomorrow. Hurry back to the company street and set up those tents on railroad time, for it's going to rain. Jump, now."

When they reached Shorty he hustled them around to pitch their tents, but he was not fast enough to please the Orderly, who presently appeared, with the remark:

"Cesar's ghost. Shorty, how slow you are. Are you going to be all night getting up two or three tents? Get a move on you, now, for there's a rain coming up, and besides I want you for something else as soon's you're through with this?"

"Who is that man, Corpril?" asked Monty Scruggs, as the Orderly left.

"That's the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q."

"Orderly-Sergeant?" repeated Monty dubiously. "Who's he? I've heard of Captains, Majors, Colonels and Generals, but never of Orderly-Sergeants, and yit he seems to be bigger'n all of 'em. He has more to say, and does more orderin' around than all of 'em put together. He even orders you and Sarjint Klegg. Is he the biggest man in the army?"

"Well, SO far's you're concerned and to all general purposes he is. You needn't pay no partickler attention as a rule to nobody else, but when the Orderly speaks, you jump, and the quicker you jump the better it'll be for you. He don't draw as much salary, nor put on as many frills as the bigger fellers, but you hain't nothin' to do with that. You kin find fault with the Captain, criticize the Kurnel, and lampoon the General, but you don't want to give the Orderly no slack. He's not to be fooled with. Russell, run up there and snatch that spade to dig ditches around these tents."

"When I enlisted," Monty confided to Alf Russell, "I thought I'd do my best to become a Captain or a General. Now, I'm dead anxious to be an Orderly-Sarjint."

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V. THE YOUNG RECRUITS ARE GIVEN AN INITIATION INTO ARMY LIFE

BY the time Shorty had gotten the boys fairly tented, he was ordered to take a squad and guard some stores at the Division Quartermaster's. Si, instead of going on camp-guard, had to go out to the grand guard. When he came back the next morning the Orderly-Sergeant said to him:

"See here, Si, you've got to take that squad of kids you brung into your particular charge, and lick 'em into shape. They need an awful sight of it, and I hain't got any time to give 'em. I've something else to do besides teaching an infant class. I never was good at bringing children up by hand, anyway. I ain't built that way. I want you to go for them young roosters at once, and get 'em into shape in short meter. Marching orders may come any day, and then we want everybody up and dressed. There'll be no time for foolishness. Those dratted little rats were all over camp last night, and into more kinds of devilment than so many pet crows. I've been hearing about nothing else this morning."

"Why," said Si, "I supposed that they was too tired to do anything but lay down and go to sleep. What'd they do?"

"Better ask what they didn't do," replied the Orderly. "They done everything that a passel o' impish school boys could think of, and what they couldn't think of them smart Alecks down in the company put 'em up to. I'm going to put some o' them smarties through a course o' sprouts. I like to see boys in good spirits, and I can enjoy a joke with the next man, but there's such a thing as being too funny. I think a few hours o' extry fatigue duty will reduce their fever for fun."

"Why, what'd they do?" repeated Si.

"Well, in the first place, they got that Joslyn and Mackall to mark a big number 79 on their tents, and then put the same, with their names, on a sheet of paper, and take it up to the Captain's tent.

"The Captain was having a life-and-death rassle with Cap Summerville over their eternal chess, when he's crosser'n two sticks, and liable to snap your head off if you interrupt him. 'Hello, what do you want? What's this?' says he, taking the paper."

Them's Our Names and Addresses 59

"'Them's our names and addresses,' says the brats, cool as cucumbers. Thought we ought to give 'em to you, so's you'd know where to find us, in case you wanted us in a hurry, say, at night.'

"The blazes it is,' says Cap, and Cap Summerville roared. 'You get back to your quarters quick as you can run. Don't worry about my not finding you when I want you. It's my business to find you, and I've got men to help me do it. I'll find you sometime in a way that'll make your hair stand up. Get out, now, and never come around my tent with any such blamed nonsense as that.'

"And Cap Somerville took advantage of the break to snap up Cap's queen, which made him hotter'n ever.

"When the boys got back they found them smart Alecks, Bob Walsh and Andy Sweeney, waiting for 'em, and they consoled 'em, saying, That's just the way with that old bull-head. Never'll take no good advice from nobody about running' the company. Thinks he knows it all. You see how he runs the company. He haint got the addresses o' half his men this minnit, and don't know where they are. That's the reason so many o' our letters from home, and the good things they send us, never reach us. He ought to keep a regler directory, same as in the other companies.'"

"Then some o' them smarties found out that Scruggs was stuck on his spouting. Seems that he was the star declaimer in his school. They laid it in to him that I was soft on hearing poetry spouted, especially after night, when the moon was up, and everything quiet in camp, and that I was particularly tender on 'Bingen on the Rhine.' You know that if there is anything I'm dead sore on it's that sniveling rot. There used to be a pasty-faced boy in school that'd wail that out, and set all the girls to bawling. Then they gave us an entertainment just before we left, and all the girls were there, and Pasty-Face he must be the star attraction. He wailed out his condemned old There-was-a-soldier-of-the Legion—laying-i- n-Algiers, and all the girls looked at us as if we were already dead, and they'd better look out for new beaux. My own particular geranium did not lose any time, but married another feller before we got to Stone River. That made me hate the blasted caterwaul worse'n ever. Then that white-eyed, moon-struck Alfonso used to be yowling it at every chance, until he went to the hospital, and he got all the rest so that they were sputtering rags and tags of it. But I've been sorer than a bile on the condemned sick calfishness ever since I brung my chum Jim Bridgewater off the field at Chickamauga, and watched him die as the moon rose, back there at McFarland Gap. Well, what do these smarties do but fill up Scruggs with the idea that the best way to make himself forever solid with me was to stroll down close to my tent and casually let off 'Bingen on the Rhine' in his best style. I'd just got down to work on them pesky pay-rolls, having kept Monaghan two days in the guard-house, so's to be sure that he'd be sober enough to help me—and you know Monaghan's lightning with the pen when he's sober—when that possessed sap-sucker Scruggs began blatting out 'Bingen on the Rhine' till you could hear him down to the Colonel's quarters. It made me so mad that I knocked over the ink as I jumped up, and spoiled the triplicate rolls that we'd got about half made out. I snatched up a club to simply mash the bawling brat, but they got him away before I could reach 'im. They explained to Scruggs afterward that I was subject to fits whenever the moon was in her last quarter, and they'd forgotten to look at the almanac that evening. O, but I'll soak 'em for that yet."

"Trouble is," said Si, laughing, "the boys've bin layin' around doin' nothin' too long. They're fuller o' devilment than a dog is of fleas."

"But I haint told you half," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "Them smarties were quick to find out that Alf Russell and Jim Humphreys leaned strongly toward religion, and they filled 'em with the idea that Cap McGillicuddy was a very devout man, and held family devotions every evening in his tent, in which his company joined."

"Great goodness," gasped Si. "They never heard Cap's remarks when we balked on a right wheel in company column."

"Well," continued the Orderly, "Cap had been waxed by Cap Summerville two games hand-running, and they were nip-and-tuck on the third, and just as impatient and cross as they always are when they're neck-and- neck in the last heat. The tent-flap raised, and in walked Russell and Humphreys soft and quietlike, as if they were going into the sitting- room for evening prayers. They had their caps in their hands, and didn't say anything but brushed their hair back and took their seats in the first place they could find, which happened to be Cap's cot. Cap didn't notice 'em till after Cap Summerville had caught his queen and then checkmated him in two moves. You know how redhot Cap gets when he loses a game of chess, particularly to Cap Summerville, who rubs it in on him without mercy.

"Cap looked at the boys in astonishment, and then snapped out: 'Well, what do you boys want?' 'We've just come in for evening prayers,' says they, mild as skimmed milk. 'Evening what?' roared the Cap. 'Evening prayers,' says they. 'Don't you have family devotion every evening? Cap Summerville couldn't hold in any longer, and just roared, and the fellers outside, who'd had their ears against the canvas listening to every word, they roared too. Cap was madder'n a July hornet, and cussed till the ridgepole shook. Then he took the two boys by the ears and marched 'em out and says: 'You two brats go back to your tents and stay there. When I want you to come to my tent I'll send for you, and you'll wish I hadn't. You'll do praying enough if you're on hand when the church call's sounded. You'll be mightily different from the rest of my company if you don't prefer going on guard to church. Get, now!'"

"Now the Captain oughtn't to say that about the company," protested Si. "I for one go to church every chance I get."

"O, yes, you do," sneered the Orderly-Sergeant. "Who was it, I'd like to know, that sent word back to the boys in the rear to steal the Chaplain's horse, and keep him hid for a day or two so's he couldn't get up and hold services, because you boys wanted to go fishing in the Tennessee River?"

"Yes, I did," Si confessed; "but it was because the boys begged me to. We'd just got there, and it looked as if the biting was good, and we probably wouldn't stay there longer'n over Sunday."

"Well, I ain't done yet," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "That little snipe, Pete Skidmore—"

"Good gracious, he wasn't lost again, was he?" gasped Si.

"That's just what he was, the little runt, and we had the devil's own time finding him. What in Sam Hill did the Captain take him for, I'd like to know? Co. Q aint no nursery. Well, the bugler up at Brigade Headquarters blowed some sort of a call, and Skidmore wanted to know what it meant. They told him that it was an order for the youngest man in each company to come up there and get some milk for his coffee tomorrow morning, and butter for his bread. There was only enough issued for the youngest boys, and if he wanted his share he'd have to get a big hustle on him, for the feller whose nose he'd put out o' joint 'd try hard to get there ahead o' him, and get his share. So Skidmore went off at a dead run toward the sound of the bugle, with the boys looking after him and snickering. But he didn't come back at roll-call, nor at tattoo, and the smart Alecks begun to get scared, and abuse each other for setting up a job on a poor, innocent little boy. Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, who had been foremost in the trick had a fight as to which had been to blame. Taps come, and he didn't get back, and then we all became scared. I'd sent Jim Hunter over to Brigade Headquarters to look for him, but he came back, and said they hadn't seen anything of him there. Then I turned out the whole company to look for him. Of course, them too-awfully smart galoots of Co. A had to get very funny over our trouble. They asked why we didn't get the right kind of nurses for our company, that wouldn't let the members stray out of their sight? Why we didn't call the children in when the chickens went to roost, undress 'em, and tuck 'em in their little beds, and sing to 'em after they'd said 'Now I lay me down to sleep?' I stood it all until that big, hulking Pete Nasmith came down with a camp-kettle, which he was making ring like a bell, as he yelled out, 'Child lost! Child lost!' Behind him was Tub Rawlings singing, 'Empty's the cradle, baby's gone.' Then I pulled off my blouse and slung it into my tent, and told 'em there went my chevrons, and I was simply Scott Ralston, and able to lick any man in Co. A. One o' their Lieutenants came out and ordered them back to their quarters, and I deployed the company in a skirmish-line, and started 'em through the brush toward Brigade Headquarters. About three-quarters o' the way Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, when going through a thicket, heard a boy boo-hooing. They made their way to him, and there was little Skidmore sitting on a stump, completely confused and fagged out. He'd lost his way, and the more he tried to find it the worse he got turned around. They called out to him, and he blubbered out: 'Yes, it's me; little Pete Skidmore. Them doddurned fools in my company 've lost me, just as I've bin tellin' 'em right along they would, durn 'em.' Osc and Ol were so tickled at finding him that they gathered him up, and come whooping back to camp, carrying him every step of the way."

"Well, I declare to gracious," ejaculated Si. "But there's one left yet. Didn't anything happen to Sandy Baker?"

"O, yes," groaned the Orderly. "He had to be in it, too. He took advantage of the tumult to fall into the company well. We didn't know anything about it till we come back from hunting Skidmore. By that time he was so chilled that he could hardly holler any more, and his teeth chattered like a nigger minstrel's bones. I'd got a can of brandied peaches down at the sutler's, and it took all the brandy to bring him around, and I had nothing left but the peaches. Now, while I like a little variety in camp-life as well as the next man, I don't want no more ructions like last night's. I'll put you in charge of those kids, and hold you responsible for 'em. I don't care what you do with 'em, so long's you keep 'em quiet, and don't disturb the company. Kill 'em, if you want to, but keep 'em quiet. I've got to finish up them pay-rolls tonight."

"You bet me and Shorty'll stop these smart Alecks from imposin' on the poor little greenies," asserted Si.

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VI. SI KLEGG PUTS HIS AWKWARD SQUAD THROUGH ITS FIRST DRILL

"I GUESS," thought Si, as he left the Orderly-Sergeant, and walked down the company street to the left, "that the best way to begin is to get them little whelps into an awkward squad, and give 'em an hour or two o' sharp drillin'. That'll introduce 'em to the realities o' soljerin'."

It was a warm, bright March day, with the North Georgia mountains rapidly robing themselves in fresh green, to welcome the coming Spring. The effervescent boys had entirely forgotten the worries of the previous night, and were frolicking in the bright sunshine as if "out-at-recess" from school.

Mackall, Joslyn, Humphreys and Baker had gotten hold of a ball, and were having a game of "two-cornered cat," with noise enough for a whole school play-ground. Russell and Scruggs were running a foot-race, for the entertainment of a squad of cooks and teamsters, and little Pete Skidmore was giving an exhibition before the same audience of his ability to stand on his head, and turn somersaults.

"Little thought they have of the seriousness of war," thought Si, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he yelled out:

"Come, boys, fall in here."

When the boys had first come under Si's command they regarded him as one of the greatest men in the army. In their shadowy notions of military matters they rather thought that he stood next to the great Generals whose names filled all mouths. These ideas had been toppled into dust by their arrival in camp, and seeing so many different men order him around. They felt ashamed of themselves that they had ever mistaken him for a great man, and put him up on a pedestal. That is the way with boys. They resent nothing more sharply than the thought of their having been deceived into honoring somebody or something unworthy of honor. They can stand anything better than a reflection upon their shrewdness and judgment.

"Hear Klegg a-calling?" said Joslyn, pausing for an instant, with the ball in his hand.

"Let him call," said Mackall, indifferently, finishing his run to base. "He ain't big boss no more. He's only the lowest Sergeant in the company. Throw the ball, Harry. You must do better'n you've been doing. We're getting away with you."

"Fall in here, boys, I tell you," said Si so sternly that Pete Skidmore stopped in his handspring, but seeing the bigger boys making no move to obey, decided that it would be improper for him to show any signs of weakness, and he executed his flip-flap.

"Here, you're out, Gid. Gi' me the bat," shouted Harry Joslyn, as he caught the ball which Mackall had vainly struck at.

Si strode over to the group, snatched the bat from Harry's hand, spanked him with it, and started for the others of the group.

"Say, you musn't hit that boy," exclaimed Gid, jumping on Si's back. Gid was as ready to fight for Harry as to fight with him. The others rushed up, school boy like, to defend their companion against "the man," and little Pete Skidmore picked up a stone and adjusted it for throwing.

"Why, you little scamps you," gasped Si in amazement. "What'd you mean? Ain't you goin' to obey my orders?"

"You haint no right to give us orders no more," asserted Humphreys, flourishing his bat defiantly. "You're only an enlisted man, same as the rest o' us. They told us so, last night, and that we mustn't let you impose on us, as you'd bin doin'. Only the Captain and the Colonel command us. We've bin posted. And if you dare hit any o' us we'll all jump on you and maul your head offen you."

The rest looked approval of Jim's brave words.

"We're goin' to strike for our altars and our fires. Strike for the green graves of our sires. God and our native land," declaimed Monty Scruggs.

The waspish little mutiny was so amusing that Si had to smile in spite of himself. With a quick, unexpected movement he snatched the bat from Jim Humphreys' hand, and said good-humoredly:

"Now, boys, you mustn't make fools of yourselves agin'. Stop this nonsense at once, I tell you. I'm just as much your commandin' officer as I ever was."

"How can you be a commanding officer, when everybody else bosses you about?" persisted the argumentative Monty Scruggs. "Everybody that comes near you orders you around, just the same as you used to us, and you mind 'em. That ain't no way for a commanding officer. We don't want anybody bossing us that everybody else bosses."

"Well, that's the way o' the army," Si explained patiently, "and you've got to git used to it. 'Most everybody bosses somebody else. The President tells Gen. Grant what he wants done. Gen. Grant orders Gen, Thomas to do it. Gen. Thomas orders a Major-General. The Major-General orders a Brigadier-General. The Brigadier-General orders our Colonel. Our Colonel orders Cap McGillicuddy. Cap McGillicuddy orders the Orderly-Sarjint, the Orderly-Sarjint orders me, and I command you."

"Why, it's worse'n 'The-House-That-Jack-Built,'" said Monty Scruggs.

"Well, you needn't learn all of it," said Si. "It's enough for you to know that I command you. That's the A B C of the business, and all you need know. A man in the army gits into trouble offen by knowin' too much. You git it well into your craws that I command you, and that you've got to do just as I say, and I'll do the rest o' the knowin' that you need.—"

"But how're we to know that you're right every time," argued Monty Scruggs.

"Well," explained the patient Si, "if you've any doubts, go to the Orderly-Sarjint. If he don't satisfy you, go to the Captain. If you have doubts about him, carry it to the Colonel. If you're still in doubt, refer it to the Brigadier-General, then to the Major-General, to Gen. Thomas, Gen. Grant, and lastly to the President of the United States."

"Great goodness!" they gasped.

"But the less you bother your heads with Captains and Curnels and Generals the better you'll git along. The feller that's right over you—in arm's length o' you all the time—is the feller that you've got to look out for sharply. I'm him. Now I want you to form in two ranks quicker'n scat, and 'tend to business. I'm goin' to drill you. Gid Mackall, take your place there. Harry Joslyn, stand behind him."

The old squabbles as to precedence immediately broke out between Gid and Harry, which Si impatiently ended by snatching Harry by the collar and yanking him behind Gid, with the wrathful Harry protesting that he intended carrying the matter up through the whole military hierarchy, even to the President of the United States, if necessary. He did not come into the army to be run over.

"You came into the army to do just as I tell you, and you'll do it. Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Humphreys, stand next to Mackall. Scruggs, stand behind Humphreys."

"Why do you put one man behind another?" queried Monty Scruggs. "I don't think that's right.—Jim's big head'll be forever in my way, so's I can't see anything. Why don't you put us out in one line, like a class in school? Then everybody's got the same show."

"I didn't make the tactics. Git into your places," snapped Si.

"Well, I don't think much of a teacher that can't explain what he's teaching," mumbled Monty, as he reluctantly obeyed.

"Now, Russell, stand next to Humphreys; Baker, stand behind Russell; Skidmore, stand next to Russell."

"Goody, I'm in the front rank," giggled little Pete, and Harry Joslyn looked as if here was another case of favoritism that he would have to call the President's attention to.

"Now," commanded Si, "put your heels together, turn your toes out, stand erect, draw your stomachs in—"

'draw Your Stomachs In. 73

"Look here, Jim Humphreys," grumbled Monty Scruggs, "when he told you to draw your stomach in he didn't mean for you to stick your hips out till you bumped me over into the next Township. I've got to have room to stand here, as well as you."

"Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Draw your stomachs in, put your little fingers down to the seams of your pantaloons—"

"You mean the middle finger, don't you?" queried Monty Scruggs. "That's more natural way of standing."

"No, I mean the little finger," asserted Si.

"But the middle finger is more natural," persisted Monty. "You can't stand straight with your little finger at the seam. See here."

"Scruggs, do as I say, without no words," said Si, and then Monty's face took on an expression of determination to carry the matter to a higher court.

"Now, keep your faces straight to the front, and at the command 'Right dress!' turn your eyes, without moving your heads, until you kin see the buttons on the breast of the second man to the right. 'Right dress!'"

"There's no man on my right for me to look toward. What 'm I to do?" complained Gid Mackall.

"There, you see what come o' putting him in front," exulted Harry Joslyn. "Now, if I'd bin—"

"Say, I can't see up to Jim Humphreys' big breast without twistin' my neck nearly off," murmured little Pete Skidmore. "Can't you make him scrooch a little? Jest see him swell up."

"What's the use o' linin' on a feller that can't stand still a second?" complained the others.

"Great Scott, what a line," groaned Si, walking along, shoving the boys back, and twisting them around, to get them straight. "Crooked as a pumpkin vine in a cornfield. Here, I told you not to turn your heads, but only your eyes. If you snipes wouldn't gab so much, but listen to what I say, you'd git along better. Silence in ranks. Now, try it over again. Faces straight to the front. Eyes cast to the right, until they catch the buttons on the breast of the second man. Right dress!"

"Great grief," sighed he, looking at the result. "You wriggle about like so many eels. Might as well try to line up so many kittens. Won't you straighten Up and keep straight?" Then came a renewal of the noisy discussion, with mutual blaming of one another.

Si picked up a stick and drew a line in the ground. "Now bring your toes to that line, and keep 'em there."

"Shall we take that scratch along with us as we march, or will you draw another one for us as we need it?" Monty Scruggs asked, at which the other boys laughed, which did not improve Si's temper. It was long, hard work before he got the restless, talkative young fellows so that they would form a fairly straight line, and maintain it for a minute or two.

He looked at them, wiped his perspiring brow, and remarked internally:

"Well, I thought them was bright boys, that it'd be no trouble to drill. I'd ruther break in the stoonidest lot o' hayseeds that ever breathed, rather than boys that think they know more'n I do. Now I'm goin' to have the time o' my life learnin' 'em the right face."

He began the explanation of that complicated manuver:

"Now, I want every one o' you to stop talkin', gether up them scatter- fire brains o' your'n, and pay strict 'tention to every word I say—"

"Harry Joslyn," broke in Gid, "if you tramp on my heels just one more time, I'll knock your head off. I've told you often enough."

"Well, you just keep off en my toes with them rockgrinders o' your'n," Harry retorted.

"Silence in ranks," commanded Si. "Each rank will count twos."

"What are twos? Where are they, and how many of 'em do you want us to count?" asked Monty Scruggs, at which the other boys snickered. They were getting very tired of the drill, and in the humor to nag and balk the drillmaster. Si lost a trifle of his temper, and said:

"You're too all-fired smart with your tongue, Scruggs. If you were only half as smart learnin' your business—"

"Sergeant," said one of the Lieutenants who happened to be passing, "keep your temper. You'll get along better. Don't squabble with your men."

This made the boys much worse.

"What I mean by countin' twos," explained Si, "is that the man on the right in each rank shall count one, the next one, two; the next one, one and so on. Count twos!"

They made such an exasperating muddle of it, that Si almost had a fit. The cooks, teamsters and other hangers-on saw the trouble and came flocking around with all manner of jesting remarks and laughter, which strained Si's temper to the utmost, and encouraged the boys in their perversity. Si curbed himself down, and laboriously exemplified the manner of counting until the boys had no excuse for not understanding it.

"Now, said he, at the command 'Right face,' the No. 1 man in the front rank faces to the right and stand fast—"

"What do the rest of us do?" they chorused.

"The rest o' you chase yourselves around him," said a humorist among the cooks, while the others laughed uproariously.

"Shut up, you pot-wrastlers," said Si wrathfully. "If I hear another word from you, I'll light into you with a club. Now you brats—"

"Sergeant," admonished the Lieutenant, "you mustn't use such language to your men."

This made Si angrier, and the boys more cantankerous. Si controlled himself to go on with his explanations in a calm tone:

"No 1 in the front rank will face to the right, and stand fast, and take a side step to the right. Each No. 2 will face to the right, and take on oblique side step to the right to place himself on the right hand of his No. 1 man."

"Say that all again, Sergeant," asked Monty Scruggs.

Si patiently repeated the explanation.

"Now sing it to the tune of 'When this Cruel War is Over,' called out the cook-humorist.

"Right face," commanded Si.

A roar went up from the camp-follower audience at the hopeless tangle which ensued. No two of the boys seemed to have done the same thing. Several had turned to the left, and all were sprinting around in various ways in a more or less genuine pretense of executing the order. Meanwhile the news that Si's squad of recruits were having fun with him spread through the camp, and a crowd gathered to watch the performance and give their jeering advice in that characteristic soldierly way when they see a comrade wrestling with a perplexing job.

"Git a bushel basket, and gather 'em up in it."

"Tie straw around their left feet, and hay around their right ones, so's they'll know 'em."

"Back 'em up agin' a rail fence and git 'em into line;" were among the freely offered suggestions. Si was sweating all over, and so angry that he had to stolidly bite his words off, one at a time, to keep from showing his temper. To add to his troubles, he saw the Colonel, of whom he stood in proper awe, become interested in the crowd and the shouting, and stroll down from his tent to see what the excitement was.

"As you were," Si commanded, steadying his voice with a great effort. "Every one of you git back as I placed you. Right dress!"

To his wonderment they formed as good a line as veterans could have done. They heard a whisper that the Colonel was coming, and it sobered them.

"Right face!" commanded Si.

They all faced to the right and stepped into their places without an error.

"Front!" commanded Si, and they returned to two ranks.

"Ah, Sergeant," said the Colonel, kindly, as he made his way through the respectfully opened, saluting crowd. "Giving your men their first drill, are you? Well, you are getting along remarkably well for recruits. I saw that last movement, and it was very well done, indeed. You've got some very nice-looking boys there, and I think they'll be a credit to the regiment."

"Saved by the skin o' my teeth," gasped Si to himself, as the Colonel strolled on. "Now, you young roosters, I see that you kin do it whenever you want to, and you've got to want to after this. A boy that don't want to I'll take down to the branch there, and hold his head under water till he does want to. I'm goin' to stay with you until you learn the drill dead letter perfect. You can't git rid of me. You'll save trouble by rememberin' that. Now we'll go back for supper. Right face—forward—file left—March!"

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VII. SHORTY'S HEART TURNS TOWARD MARIA AND HE FINALLY GETS A LETTER FROM HER

AFTER the flush of excitement of returning to his old regiment and meeting his comrades—after the process of readjusting himself to the changed relations made by death, wounds, discharges, resignations and promotions—after the days had brought a settling back into the old routine of camp-life, there developed in Shorty's heart growing homesickness for Maria Klegg.

At least that was what it seemed to him. He did not exactly know what homesickness was from personal experience, as he had never really had a home. But he had seen thousands of boys more or less affected by that obscure but stubborn and dangerous malady, and had noted their symptoms, which strongly resembled his own.

Somehow, the sun only shone with real brightness and warmth over the pleasant homes and fertile fields of Posey County, Ind. Somehow, women had a fairness and sweetness there denied to their sex elsewhere, and somehow the flower of them all was a buxom maiden of 20 dwelling under the roof of Deacon Klegg.

Shorty appreciated very properly the dignity and responsibilities of his two stripes. He was going to be the model Corporal of the regiment, and give all the rest a copy which they could follow to advantage. Of all the Corporals he had ever known, Si Klegg had come nearest his ideas as to what a Corporal should be, but even Si had his limitations. He would show him some improvements. So shorty bent his mind upon the performance of everything pertaining to the Corporalcy with promptness and zeal. He even set to studying the Regulations and Tactics—at least those paragraphs relating to Corporals and their duties—where heretofore he had despised "book-soldiering," and relied on quick observation and "horse sense" to teach him all that was worth knowing. But his stay in the Deacon's home showed him that they esteemed "book-knowledge" even in common things as of much value, and he began to have a new respect for that source of instruction.

Even through the pressure of official duties and responsibilities there would steal, like the wafting of a sweet song to the ears of the reapers in a hot field, thoughts of the coolness, the beauty and the peace of that quiet home on the Wabash, with one flower-faced girl, with white, soft arms, going about her daily tasks, singing with such blithe cheeriness that even the birds stopped to listen to a sweeter note than theirs. Some subtle fragrance from her seemed to be with him wherever he was, and whatever he might be doing. When, as the tallest Corporal in Co. Q, he stood on the right of the company, on drill and dress parade, and made the others "dress" on him, he wished that Maria Klegg could only see how straight the line was, and how soldierly the boys looked. When the Colonel personally selected him to command the squad which was to escort the Paymaster through a dangerous part of the country, he would have given much had Maria known of the trust reposed in him. And when, as Corporal of the Guard, he suppressed in his usual summary way a noisy row among the teamsters and cooks, he was very glad that Maria did not hear the remarks that a Corporal always thinks necessary to make on such occasions. Shorty did not swear with the fluent ease of before his visit to the Klegg homestead, but a little excitement gave the old looseness to his tongue. And when he sat around the guard-fire, he would refuse to be drawn into any "little games," but turn his back upon the chattering crowd, and furtively draw from his breast-pocket the remnant of Maria's dress, and feel it, and muse over it, until aroused by the call:

"Corporal of the Guard, Post No. 14. I want a drink o' water."

Shorty began to watch for Si's mail a good deal more anxiously than that worthy did. He managed to go by the Chaplain's tent whenever duty took him in that part of the camp, and sometimes when it did not, and inquire if there was any mail there for Si. One day he was rewarded by the Chaplain handing him two letters. His heart beat a little quicker by seeing that they were both postmarked Bean Blossom Creek. The smaller—a white envelope, superscribed in Annabel's cramped little hand—he thrust indifferently into his pocket, and the larger—a fat, yellow envelope, covered with the good Deacon's massive crow-tracks, and securely fastened by a dab of sealing wax, pressed down with a cent—he studied with tender interest. It had come directly from her home—from her father. It probably told something about her.

It seemed as if there was something of the perfume of her presence about it. Possibly she had carried it to the station and mailed it. He turned it over gently, studied every detail, and fixed his eyes upon it, as if he would make them pierce the thick, strong paper and devour the contents. Then it occurred to him that the better and quicker way to get at the inside would be to deliver the letters to Si. So he hunted up his partner, whom he found about to take his squad out for a turn at wagon guarding.

Si looked pleased as he recognized his father's letter, but his face flushed to the roots of his sandy hair at the sight of Annabel's. He put the latter carefully in his pocket. It was too sweet and sacred a thing to be opened and read under the gaze of any one else's eyes. He broke open his father's and as his eyes traveled slowly down the large foolscap pages, covered with the Deacon's full-grown characters, for the Deacon made his letters as he liked his stock—big and full—he said:

"They're all well at home, but mother's had a tech of her old rheumatiz. Pap's sold his wheat at a dollar and four bits. Peaches about half killed. Had good luck with his lambs. Wheat's lookin' unusually well. Beck Spangler's married Josh Wilson, whose wife died last Fall, leavin' him two little children. Brindle cow's come in fresh, with a nice calf, quarter Jersey. Copperhead's gittin' sassy agin. Holdin' night meetin's and wearin' butternut badges, and talkin' about resistin' draft. Hogs wintered well, and looks as if Pap'd have a nice drove to sell in the Fall. Pap'll put in 'bout 90 acres o' corn, and'll have to hustle his plowin' ez soon's the ground's fit. Little Sammy Woggles had a fight with Beecham's boy, who's six months older, and licked him. Sammy likes school better now than he did. Pap's bought Abraham Lincoln a new suit o' store clothes and the girls have made him some white shirts. He goes to church every Sunday now, and carries a cane. Pap sends his regards to you, Shorty, and mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered. There, take the letter, Shorty, and read it for yourself. I've got to skip out with my squad."

Shorty took the letter with eagerness, and retired to a nook to read it all over carefully, and see if he could not mayhap glean out of it something more relating to Her. But the main satisfaction was in reading again and again "Mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered to Shorty."

"Not uncomfortably warm, and purty general, like the gal who promised to be a sister to the hull rijimint," mused Shorty, as he refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. "But, then, it is better to be kindly remembered by sich people as them than to be slobbered over by anybody else in the world. Wisht I knowed jest how much o' the kind remembrance was Maria's, and if it differed in any way from her mother's and sister's?"

The next evening the Orderly-Sergeant handed Shorty a badly-thumb-marked and blotted yellow envelope, on which was scrawled in a very schoolish hand:

"To Mister Corpril Elliott, "Co. Q, Two Hundred Injianny Volintears,

"Chattynoogy, 10-S-E."

Opening it he read:

Mister Shortee

U ar a Frawd!!! That's what U ar!!!

Whairz mi Gunn??????

U ar a long-shanked, brick-topt Frawd & a promisbraker!!!

Whairz mi Gunn???

U hav now bin away a hole month, & I haint seen no Gunn!

Awl the boiz is makin fun ov Me, bekaws I blowed around bout the Gunn I waz going 2 git, & I didn't git none.

Whairz mi Gunn???

I likked Ans. Beechum till he hollered nuff, for teezin Me bout mi Gunn. That's quiled the other boiz.

But I want mi Gunn!

I have just lots & Gobs 2 tell U, bout what Maria's bin sayin bout yore saffron head, but I shant write a word till I git mi Gunn!

I wont tell U how the girls is pleggin her bout her Big Sunflower till I git mi Gunn!

If U doant send mi Gunn rite off He tel Maria everything I no.

I tel U now. He spile yore fun

Onless at once U send mi Gunn.

Yores til deth,

SAMUEL WOGGLES.

The reception of this perturbed Shorty to his depths. He had not forgotten his promise to Sammy—merely postponed its execution under the pressure of other engrossments. He reproached himself for not remembering how eagerly the boy had been looking forward to a possession which would make him the envy of the other boys—really hated by them for his towering and undeserved fortune.

"And Maria and the girls is talkin' about me," he communed with himself. "I knowed that my left ear hadn't bin burnin' ever since we crossed the Ohio River for nothin'. I thought it was because it'd got so tender layin' on pillers that the blankets chafed it. Now I understand it. And I can't hear nothin' of what they've bin sayin' till I git that gun to Sammy. I'll start it to him this day, if it takes a leg. I'd intended to go over to the camp o' the Maumee Muskrats today, on a missionary, tower with them new tricks I brung back with me, but I'll put in the time gittin' Sammy's gun and shippin' it to him. Wonder where I kin pick up a rebel musket and trimmins'?" Shorty did not find this so easy as he had anticipated. Generally, rebel guns had been a drug in the market. They could be found lying around camp almost anywhere, and were used for any purpose to which they could be applied—poles to hang kettles on over the fire, tent-sticks, revetments to hold the dirt back, or any other use. But under the rigid system now prevailing in Sherman's camps everything had to be accounted for, and every gun sufficiently serviceable to be worth sending to Sammy had been gathered up and stored away in a large shed. Shorty went down there and scrutinized the armory. There were plenty of guns in there, any one of which would make Sammy's heart leap for joy, and render him the object of the burning envy of all the boys for miles around. But there were guards pacing around, and they looked watchful. Still, if the night were dark he might slip in and steal one. But somehow since he had known Maria there had risen in his mind a repugnance to that way of procuring things. It was not in accordance with Klegg ideas. He sat down and pondered on other methods. He went over and talked to the Sergeant in charge, an old acquaintance, but the Sergeant was obdurate.

"No, sir. Can't let one of 'em go on no account," said the Sergeant firmly. "My Captain's in charge of 'em, and he's put me in charge. He knows he can trust me, and I know that he can. He don't know how many guns and bayonets and cartridge-boxes there are, but I do, for I counted them first thing when I come on. I don't propose that he shall have to have any shortage charged against him when he comes to settle his accounts. I don't know whether they've got an account of the things at Headquarters, but they're likely to have, and I'm not taking any risks. I'm looking out for my Captain."

"But suppose I pay you the value of the blamed old blunderbuss," said Shorty, as a desperate resort, for it was the first time that he had ever thought of a rebel gun having a money value.

"I wouldn't take it," replied the Sergeant. "First place, I haint no idea what they're worth. Next place, if I had, I wouldn't take it, for I don't want any shortage in Cap's accounts. Thirdly, if I took the money I'd like as not set into a game o' poker tonight and lose it, and then where'd I be, and where'd Cap be? I've been having monstrous hard luck at poker lately."

"That's because you ain't up to the latest kinks," said Shorty, hopefully. "I've been back to the rear—just come from Jeffersonville—and I've got on to a lot of new dodges. I'll show 'em all to you for one o' them guns."

The waver in the Sergeant's face showed the temptation was a trying one, but he answered firmly:

"No; I won't do it."

"I'll put up a $10 bill agin one o' the guns, play you two out o' three for it, learn you the tricks, and give you back the money if I win," said Shorty desperately.

Again the Sergeant's face showed great irresolution, but again his fidelity triumphed, and he answered firmly, "No I won't." Then he softened his refusal by saying:

"Come, Shorty, walk over a little way with me. I know where we can get something good."

After they had shared a tincupful of applejack that a teamster supplied them the Sergeant's heart thawed out a little.

"I tell you. Shorty, there's a gun in there that'd just tickle your boy to death. It's an Enfield, new one, and has a Yankee bullet sticking in the butt. Must've knocked the Johnny a double somersault when it struck. I've been thinkin' sending it home myself. But I'll let you have it, and I'll tell you how you can get it. See that camp over there? Well, that's a regiment being organized out o' Tennessee refugees. They and their officers are the carelessest lot of galoots that ever lived. Their Quartermaster stores and their Commissary stores, and everything they have is allowed to lie around loose, just wherever they get the notion to drop them. I've had my eye on 'em for several days, and've helped several of my friends to straighten up their company accounts, and replace things that they'd lost. You just waltz over there, careless like, as if you belonged to the regiment, pick up a gun and traps, put 'em on, and sail back here, and I'll turn your things in, and give you that gun with the bullet in the stock in exchange."

Shorty lost no time in acting on the advice. That afternoon the express from Chattanooga carried a gun to Sammy Woggles, the contemplation of which deprived that youth of sleep the night after he received it, and won him the cordial hatred of every boy in his neighborhood for his overweening pride.

But after the gun was gone, and after Shorty had written a laborious letter, informing Sammy of the shipment of the gun and its history, which letter inclosed a crisp greenback, and was almost as urgent in injunctions to Sammy to write as Sammy had been about his piece of ordnance, Shorty sat down in sadness of heart. He was famishing for information from Maria, and at the lowest calculation he could not hope for a letter from Sammy for two weeks.

"It'll take at least a week for that little rat to git over his fever about that gun," he mused, "until he'll be able to set up and think about anything else. Then it'll take him at least another week to build a letter. Great Jehosephat, how'm I goin' to stand it till then? Where'll I be two weeks from now? What kin I do? I a'most wish that something'd happen to Si that'd give me an excuse for writin'."

He racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. There was a halo of unapproachableness about Maria Klegg that paralyzed him.

He awoke the next morning with the same anxiety gnawing at his heart, and it haunted him so that he went through the morning's routine mechanically. When he came back from taking a squad up to Headquarters to report for fatigue duty, the Orderly-Sergeant called out:

"Here's a letter for you, Corporal Elliott." Shorty took the small white envelope from the Orderly's hand, and looked at it curiously. Who could it be from? It resembled somewhat the letters that once came from Bad Ax, Wis., but then again it was very different. He studied the handwriting, which was entirely strange to him. Then he was electrified by seeing that the postmark seemed to be something the same as on Si's letters, but was blurred. He gave a little gasp, and said:

"Orderly, I'd like to git off a little while today." "Why, Shorty," remonstrated the busy Sergeant, "you were off yesterday. But go. I'll try to get along without you. Don't stay long."

A Letter from Maria. 81

Shorty would not trust himself to more than look at the outside, until he had gained a safe screen behind a clump of bushes. Then he took out his knife, carefully slit the envelope, and read:

Dear Mr. Elliot—

I take my pen in hand to inform you that we are all in good health and hope you are enjoyin' the same blessing fur which we should all be thankful to God. I am over on a visit to Prairie Hen and Mrs. Skidmore a widow woman called to see me today In the course of conversation she said her little boy Peter had run off and shed hurd hed joined the 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. She heard that we had folks in that regiment and so had come over to see me to see if I knowed anybody that would give her any news about her boy so as she could ask them to look out for him. I told her I knowed a gentleman in the 200th Indiana who would look out for Peter and be a second father to him and as soon as she had went I started this epistle. I thot id answer my letters because its all he can do to write answer my letter because its all he can do to write to mother and Annabel and dont write to mother haf often enuf besides id like to hear from you myself. Sincerely Yore Friend

Maria Klegg.

"M-a-r-i-a-r K-l-e-g-g," gasped Shorty, spelling over the letters, one at a time, to make sure that his eyes were not making a fool of him. "And she'd like to hear from me."

And he took off his hat, and fanned his burning face.

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VIII. SHORTY WRITES A LETTER TO MARIA KLEGG AND ENTERS UPON HIS PARENTAL RELATIONS TO LITTLE PETE SKIDMORE

THE self-sufficient, self-reliant Shorty had never before had anything to so completely daze him. "Ackchelly a letter from Maria Klegg. Writ of her own free will and accord. And she wants to hear from me," he murmured, reading the letter over and over again, and scanning the envelope as if by intensity of gaze he would wring more from the mute white paper. The thought was overpowering that it had come directly from her soft hand; that she had written his name upon it; that her lips had touched the stamp upon it. He tenderly folded up the letter and replaced it in the envelope. His thoughts were too tumultuous for him to sit still. He would walk and calm himself. He wrapped the piece of Maria's dress around the letter, rose and started off. He had gone but a few steps when it seemed to him that he had not caught the full meaning of some of the words in the letter. He sought a secluded place where he could sit down, unseen by any eyes, and read the letter all over again several times. Then came the disturbing thought of how he was to care for and protect the precious missive? He could not bear to part with it for a single minute, and yet he did not want to carry the sacred thing around exposed to the dirt and moil of daily camp-life and the danger of loss. He thought long and earnestly, and at last went down to a large sutler's store, and purchased the finest morocco wallet from his stock. Even this did not seem a sufficiently rich casket for such a gem, and he bought a large red silk bandana, in which he carefully wrapped letter, dress fragment and wallet, and put them in the pocket of his flannel shirt, next his breast. Next came the momentous duty of writing an answer to the letter. Yesterday he was burning with a desire to make an opportunity to write. Now the opportunity was at hand, the object of his desires had actually asked him to write her, and the completeness of the opportunity unnerved him.

"The first thing I have got to do," said he, "is to git some paper and envelopes and ink. I don't s'pose they've got anything here fit for a gentleman to write to a lady with." He turned over the sutler's stock of stationery disdainfully, and finally secured a full quire of heavy, gilt-edged paper, and a package of envelopes, on which was depicted a red-and-blue soldier, with a flag in one hand and a gun in the other, charging bayonets through a storm of bursting shells.

"It's true I ain't one o' the color-guard yit," mused Shorty, studying the picture, "but the Colonel sorter hinted that I might be, if Cap McGillicuddy could spare me from Co. Q, which ain't at all likely. Now, Mister, le'me see some pens."

"Here's some—Gillott's—best quality," said the sutler's clerk.

"Naw," said Shorty contemptuously. "Don't want no common steel pens. Goin' to write to a lady. Git me your best gold ones."

Shorty made quite a pretense of trying, as he had seen penmen do, the temper of the pens upon his thumb-nail, but chose the largest and highest priced one, in an elaborate silver holder.

"I'm very partickler 'bout my pens," said he to the clerk. "I must have 'em to just suit my hand. Some folks's very keerless about what they write with, but I wasn't brung up that way."

"If you'd ask my advice," said the clerk, "I'd recommend this thing as the best for you to use. It'd suit fine Italian hand better'n any pen ever made."

And he held up a marking-pot and brush.

"Young man," said Shorty, solemnly, as he paid for his purchases, "the condition o' your health requires you not to try to be funny. It's one o' the dangerousest things in the army. You're exposed to a great many complaints down here, but nothin' 'll send you to the hospital as suddenly as bein' funny."

The next thing was a studio where he could conduct his literary task without interruption, and Shorty finally found a rock surrounded by bushes, where he could sit and commune with his thoughts. He got the cover of a cracker-box, to place on his knees and serve for a desk, laid his stationery down beside him, re-read Maria's letter several times, spoiled several sheets of paper in trying to get his fingers limber enough for chirography, and then, begun the hardest, most anxious afternoon's work he had ever done, in writing the following letter:

"Camp ov the 2 Hunderdth Injianny

"Voluntear Infantry,

"Mishun Rij, nere Chattynoogy, April the 10, 1864.

"Miss Maria Klegg,

"Respected Frend.

(This part of the letter had cost Shorty nearly an hour of anxious thought. He had at first written "Dere Miss Maria," and then recoiled, shuddered and blushed at the thought of the affectionate familiarity implied. Then he had scrawled, one after another, the whole gamut of beginnings, before he decided upon addressing her, as was her right, as formally as he would the wife of the President.)

"Yore letter was welcomer to me than the visit ov the Pamaster, after six months exclipse ov hiz cheerful mug."

("I think 'mug' is the word they use for face in good society," mused Shorty, with the end of the penholder in his mouth. "At least I heard the Kurnel use it one day. She can't expect no man to be much gladder of anything than the comin' o' the Paymaster, and that orter please her.")

"Thankee for yore kind inkwiries az to mi helth? Ime glad to say that Ime all rite, and sound in lung, body and runnin' gear, and—"

(Shorty was on the point of adding "Hope that you are enjoying the same blessing," when a shiver passed through him that it might be improper to allude to a young lady's locomotory apparatus. After deep meditation, he took safety's side and added):

"So's Si. I sinserely hoap that you are injoyin' the blessin's ov helth, and the konsolashuns ov religion."

("I'm not certain about that last," thought Shorty, "but I heard a preacher say it once, and it ought to be all right to write to a young lady.")

"We are still layin' in camp, but expectin' every day orders to move out for a little soshable with Mister Joe Johnston, whose roostin over on Pigeon Mountain. When we git at him, there won't be no pigeon about it, but a game ov fox-and-geese with us for the foxes.

("There," mused Shorty, complacently; "that'll amuse her. Girls like a little fun throwed into letters, when it's entirely respectful.)

"Little Pete Skidmore is in the company, all rite. He is wun ov the nicest boys that ever lived, but he needs half-killin' nerely every day. All real nice boys do. Woodent give much for them if they diddent. Tel his mother He look out for him, and fetch him up in the way he shood go, if I haf to break every bone in his body. She needent worry. I no awl about boys. Thair like colts—need to be well-broke before thair enny akount."

("Now," commented Shorty, as he read what he had written, "that'll make Maria and his mother feel easy in their minds. They'll think they're in great luck to git a man who'll be a second father to Pete, and not risk spilin the child by sparin the rod.")

("Great Jehosephat, what work writing to a young lady is. I'd much ruther build breastworks or make roads. Now, if it was some ordinary woman, I wouldn't have to be careful about my spelin' and gramer, but with sich a lady as Maria Klegg—great Cesar's ghost! a man must do the very best that's in him, and then that ain't half enough. But I must hurry and finish this letter this afternoon. I can't git another day off to work at it.")

"Respected Miss Maria, what a fine writer you are. Yore handwritin' is the most beautiful I ever seen. Jeb Smith, our company clerk, thinks that he can sFlink ink to beat old Spencerian System hisself, but he ain't once with you. Ide ruther see one line ov your beautiful ritin' than all that he ever writ."

("That's so," said Shorty, after judicially scanning the sentence. "Jeb kin do some awful fancy kurlys, and draw a bird without takin' his pen from the paper, but he never writ my name a thousandth part as purty as Maria kin.")

"And how purty you spel. Ime something ov a speler myself, and can nock out most ov the boys in the company on Webster's Primary, but I aint to be menshuned in the saim day with you.

"With best respecks to your family, and hoapin soon to here from you, I am very respeckfully, your friend,

W. L. Elliot.

Corpril, Company Q, 2 Hundsrdth Injiamiy Volintear Infantry."

By the time he had his letter finished, and was wiping the sweat of intense labor from his brow, he heard the bugle sounding the first call for dress parade. "I must go and begin my fatherly dooties to little Pete Skidmore," he said, carefully sealing his letter and sticking a stamp on it, to mail at the Chaplain's tent as he went by. "It's goin' to be extry fatigue to be daddy to a little cuss as lively as a schoolhouse flea, and Corpril of Co. Q, at the same time, but I'm going to do it, if it breaks a leg."

He was passing a clump of barberry bushes when he overheard Pete Skidmore's voice inside:

"I'll bet $10 I kin pick it out every time. I'll bet $25 I kin pick it out this time. Don't tech the cards."

"I don't want to lose no more money on baby bets," replied a tantalizing voice. "I'll make it $40 or nothin'. Now, youngster, if y're a man—"

Shorty softly parted the bushes and looked in. Two of the well-known sharpers who hung around the camps had enticed little Pete in there, and to a game of three-card monte. They had inflamed his boyish conceit by allowing him to pick out two cards in succession, and with small bets.

"I hain't got but $40 left o' my bounty and first month's pay," said little Pete irresolutely, "and I wanted to send $35 of it home to mother, but I'll—"

"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," shouted Shorty, bursting through the bushes. "You measly whelps, hain't you a grain o' manhood left? Ain't you ashamed to swindle a green little kid out o' the money that he wants to send to his widowed mother?"

"Go off and 'tend to your own business, if you know what's good for you," said the larger of the men threateningly. "Keep your spoon out o' other folks' soup. This young man knows what he's about. He kin take care o' himself. He ain't no chicken. You ain't his guardeen."

"No he ain't," said Pete Skidmore, whose vanity was touched as well as his cupidity aroused. "Mind your own business, Mister Elliott. You're only a Corpril anyway. You hain't nothin' to do with me outside the company. I kin take care o' myself. I've beat these men twice, and kin do it again."

"Clear out, now, if you don't want to git hurt," said the larger man,' moving his hand toward his hip.

Shorty's response was to kick over the board on which the cards were lying, and knock the man sprawling with a back-handed blow. He made a long pass at the other man, who avoided it, and ran away. Shorty took Pete by the collar and drew him out of the bushes, in spite of that youngster's kicks and protestations.

He halted there, pulled out his pocket-knife, and judicially selected a hickory limb, which he cut and carefully pruned.

"What're you goin' to do?" asked Pete apprehensively.

"I'm goin' to give you a lesson on the evils of gamblin', Pete, especially when you don't know how."

"But I did know how," persisted Pete. "I beat them fellers twice, and could beat them every time. I could see quicker'n they could move their hands."

"You little fool, you knowed about as much about them cards as they know of ice-water in the place where Jeff Davis is goin'. Pete, I'm goin' to be a second father to you."

"Dod dum you, who asked you to be a daddy to me? I've had one already. When I want another, I'll pick one out to suit myself," and Pete looked around for a stone or a club with which to defend himself.

"Pete," said Shorty solemnly as he finished trimming the switch, and replaced the knife in his pocket, "nobody's allowed to pick out his own daddy in this world. He just gits him. It's one o' the mysterious ways o' Providence. You've got me through one o' them mysterious ways o' Providence, and you can't git shet o' me. I'm goin' to lick you still harder for swearin' before your father, and sayin' disrespeckful words to him. And I'm goin' to lick you till you promise never to tech another card until I learn you you how to play, which'll be never. Come here, my son."

The yells that soon rose from that thicket would have indicated that either a boy was being skinned alive or was having his face washed by his mother.

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IX. SI TAKES HIS BOYS FOR A LITTLE MARCH INTO THE COUNTRY

"SI," said the Orderly-Sergeant, "here's a chance to give them pin- feather roosters o' yours a little taste of active service, that'll be good seasoning for 'em, and help develop their hackles and spurs."

"Good idee. What is it?" responded Si with alacrity.

"An order's come down from Headquarters to detail a Sergeant and eight men from the company to go out about eight or 10 miles in the country, and take a turn guarding a little mill they're running out there, grinding meal. There's a gang of bushwhackers around there, that occasionally pester the men at work and they've tried once to burn the mill. I don't think you'll have much trouble, but you've got to keep your eye peeled, and not let any of your boys go to sleep on post."

"I'll look out for that."

"I know you will. You'll take Shorty along, and your seven kids, which'll make up the number. You'll draw three days' rations, at the end of which time you'll be relieved."

"Now, boys," said Si, returning to his squad, "we won't drill today, but are going out on some real soldierin'. The Kurnel has given us a very important detail."

The boys swelled up visibly at the news.

"I want you to all act like soldiers, now," continued Si, "and be a credit to the company and the rijiment. We're goin' to be all by ourselves, and everybody's eyes 'll be on us."

"Yes," echoed Shorty, "we'll be the only part o' the rijiment at the front, and we want to git a good stiff brace on ourselves, because if we don't some o' these other rijiments may git the grand laugh on us."

Shorty's tone was that this was a calamity to which death was preferable, and the boys were correspondingly impressed. They were rapidly learning the lesson that the regiment and its reputation were the most important things in the whole world.

"Come along, and le's draw our rations," said Si. "And you boys want to keep in mind that this's all you'll git for three days, and govern yourselves accordingly. The 'Leventh Commandment is to take all that you kin git, and take mighty good care of it after you git it—"

"For sich is the Kingdom of Heaven," interjected Shorty, imitating the Chaplain's tone.

"No," said Si, who was irritated by his partner's irreverence: "but it's the way a good soldier does. His first dooty's to take care o' his grub, because that's takin' care o' himself, and keepin' himself in good shape to do the dooty the Government expects o' him. 'Tain't servin' the Government right for him to be careless about himself. Now here's 27 rations o' bread, meat, coffee, sugar, salt and beans—three apiece for each of us. Harry Joslyn, you and Gid Mack divide them up into nine equal piles."

Si and Shorty turned to give directions about packing up the shelter- tents and blankets for carrying.

"Now, Gid Mackall," said Harry, "play fair, if you ever did in your life. I won't have none o' your shenanniging."

"Don't talk to me about shenanniging, you little imp," responded Gid cordially. "You can't do a straight thing if you try, and you never try. You never fisted-up with me on a ball-bat that you didn't slip your hand so's to come out ahead."

"Now, there's three loaves o' bread for the Sargint," said Harry, laying them down on a newspaper. "There's three for the Corpril; there's three for me; there's three for you."

"Here, what're you givin' me that broken loaf for?" demanded Gid, stopping in his distribution of meat. "Give that to Pete Skidmore. He's the littlest."

"Ain't goin' to do nothin' o' the kind," responded Harry. "You've got to take things as they come. That loaf fell to you, and you've got to keep it."

"If you don't take that nubbin loaf away and put a full one in its place, not a speck o' lean meat 'll you get—nothin' but fat six inches thick."

"You'll cut that meat straight across, and give me my right share o' lean, you puddin'-headed, sandhill crane," shouted Harry.

"Who're you a-calling names, you bow-legged little shrimp?" shouted Gid, slapping Harry across the face with a piece of fat pork.

An angry mix-up, school boy rules, followed, to the great detriment of the rations. Si and Shorty rushed up, separated the combatants, and administered shakes, cuffs, and sharp reprimands.

"Now, you quarrelsome little whelps," said Si, after quiet had been restored, "you've got to take them rations that you've spiled for yourselves. You shan't have no other. Put that bread and that meat you've kicked around into your own haversacks. Then go back there and roll up your blankets—same as the other boys. Alf Russell, you and Jim Humphreys come here and divide the rest o' these rations into seven parts, if you kin do it without fightin'."

The division of the rations proceeded, with some jars between Russell and Humphreys over the apportionment of fat and lean meat, and angry protests from little Pete Skidmore because they made his share smaller than anybody else's.

"Yit," said he, "I've got to march just as far as any of you, carry just as big a gun, and do just as much shootin'."

"You're wrong," said the medical-minded Alf Russell. "You ought to have less than the others, because you're smaller. The littler and younger the person the smaller the dose, always."

"No," acceded the farmer Jim Humphreys. "Tain't natural, nor right. You don't give a colt as much feed as you do a grown horse. Anybody knows that."

"Pete's plea is sound," contraverted the legal-minded Monty Scruggs. "All men are equal before the law, though they mayn't be a foot high. Rations are a matter of law, and the law's no respecter of persons."

"Rations is intended," persisted Alf, "to give a man what he needs to eat—nothing more, nothing less. Pete don't need as much as a man; why give it to him? There'd be just as much sense in giving him the clothes for a six-footer."

"All o' you are always imposin' on me 'cause I'm little," whimpered Pete. "And that stuck-up Alf Russell's the worst of all. Just because he's goin' to be a doctor, and leads in singin' at church, he thinks he knows more'n the man what writ the arithmetic, and he's down on me because I won't take all he says for law and gospel, in spite of his airs. Jim Humphreys is down on me, because I writ home that I'd shot a man back there at the burnt bridge, and Jim got skeered at a coon- huntin' nigger."

"Never mind, Pete," said Monty consolingly, "none o' them shall impose on you while I'm around. Now, Alf, you and Jim give Pete just as much as the rest, or I'll make you."

"Who'll you make, you brindle steer?" said Alf, laying down his bread and bristling up.

"Stand back, Alf; he meant me," said Jim, disposing his meat, and approaching Monty with doubled fists. "Now, Mister Scruggs, le's see you do some makin', since you're so brash."

"Here, stop that, you little scamps," shouted Si, whose attention had been so far devoted to quieting Harry and Gid, and showing them how to prepare their traps for marching. "Great Scott, can't you git along without fightin'? I'm goin' to take you where you'll git real fightin' enough to satisfy you.

"Go ahead, there, and divide them rations, as I ordered you, and be quick about it, for we must hurry off."

The mention of real fighting immediately sobered up the boys, and made them forget their squabbles. They hurried about their work with quickened zeal.

"Now," said Si, "pack your rations carefully in your haversacks, just as you see me and Corpril Elliott doin'. First, keep your sugar, coffee and salt separate. Put 'em in little tin boxes, like these, and see that the lids are on tight. Hurry up, now. Shorty, you'd better look over the boxes, and go up and draw as many cartridges as you think we'll need."

The mention of need for cartridges was an electric impulse which set the boys keenly alive. They bundled their rations into their haversacks, and flung their blanket rolls over their shoulders, and were standing in a state of palpitating expectancy, when Shorty came back with his hands full of cartridges, which he proceeded to distribute.

"Take arms," commanded Si. "Forward!—March!"

Si and Shorty started off with their long, easy campaign stride, which, in some incomprehensible way that the veteran only learns by practice, brought their feet down every time in exactly the right place, avoiding all stumbling-blocks, and covering without apparent effort a long distance in the course of an hour. The boys pattered industriously after, doing their best to keep up, but stumbling over roots and stones, and slipping on steep places, and dropping to the rear in spite of themselves.

When Si made the customary halt at the end of the first hour, his little command was strung back for a quarter of a mile, and little Pete Skidmore was out of sight.

"Better go back and look for little Pete, Shorty," said Si. "We seem to be losin' him."

Pete was soon brought up, panting and tired.

"Dod durn it, what're you all runnin' away from me for?" he gasped. "Want to lose me? Want to git into the fight all by yourselves, and leave me out? Think because I'm little I can't help? I kin shoot as well as anybody in the crowd, dod durn you."

"There, you see the nonsense o' giving you as much rations as the others," suggested Alf Russell. "You can't pack 'em, and you wouldn't need 'em if you did pack 'em."

"What business is it of yours. Mister Russell, I'd like to know," asked Monty Scruggs, "what he does with his rations. His rations are his rights, and he's entitled to 'em. It's nobody's business what use a man makes of his rights."

"Where are these rebels that we're goin' to fight?" asked Harry Joslyn, eagerly scanning the horizon. "I've been looking for 'em all along, but couldn't see none. Was you in such a hurry for fear they'd get away, and have they got away?"

"I wasn't in no hurry," answered Si. "That was only regler marchin' gait."

"Holy smoke," murmured the rest, wiping their foreheads; "we thought you was trying to run the rebels down."

"Don't be discouraged, boys," said Si. "You'll soon git used to marchin' that way right along, and never thinking of it. It may seem a little hard now, but it won't last long. I guess you're rested enough. Attention! Forward!—March!"

Si and Shorty had mercifully intended to slow down a little, and not push the boys. But as they pulled out they forgot themselves, and fell again into their long, swinging stride, that soon strung the boys out worse than ever, especially as they were not now buoyed up by an expectation of meeting the enemy.

"We must march slower. Si," said Shorty, glancing ruefully back, "or we'll lose every blamed one o' them boys. They're too green yit."

"That's so," accorded Si. "It's like tryin' to make a grass-bellied horse run a quarter-stretch."

"Might I inquire," asked Monty Scruggs, as he came up, wiped his face and sat down on a rock, "whether this is what you'd call a forced march, or merely a free-will trial trot for a record."

"Neither," answered Si. "It's only a common, straight, every-day march out into the country. You kin count upon one a day like this for the rest o' your natural lives—I mean your service. It's part o' what you enlisted for. And this's only a beginnin'. Some days you'll have to keep this up 15 or 18 hours at a stretch."

There was a general groan of dismay.

"Gracious, I wish I'd wings, or that I'd enlisted in the cavalry," sighed Harry.

"Brace up! Brace up!" said Shorty. "You'll soon git used to it, and make your 40 miles a day like the rest of us, carrying your bed-clothes and family groceries with you. It's all in gittin' used to it, as the man said who'd bin skinnin' eels for 40 years, and that now they didn't mind it a bit."

"Well, le's jog along," said Si. "We ought to git there in another hour. There's a big rain comin' up, and we want to git under cover before it strikes us. Forward!—March!"

But the rain was nearer that Si thought. It came, as the Spring rains come in the North Georgia mountains—as if Niagara had been shifted into the clouds overhead. The boys were literally washed off the road, and clung to saplings to avoid being carried away into the brush.

"I'll fall back and keep the boys together," said Shorty, as soon as an intermission allowed them to speak.

"Alright," said Si. "Look out for little Pete." And Si began to forge stolidly ahead.

"Goodness, Sarjint, you're not going to travel in such a storm as this," gasped Gid Mackall.

"Certainly," Si called back. "Come on. We've got to reach that mill tonight, no matter what happens. You'd might as well be drowned marchin' as standin' still. 'Tain't rainin' no worse further ahead than here. Forward!"

Close Up, Boys. 111

"Close up, boys," said Shorty, taking little Pete's gun and the youngster's hand. "This's only a Spring shower. 'Tain't nothin' to what we had on the Tullyhomy Campaign. There the drops was as big as punkins, and come as thick as the grains on a ear o' corn. Close up, there; dodge the big drops, and go ahead."

"Hold on to me tight! Hold on to me!" clamored little Pete. "If you don't I'll be washed away and lost for sure."

"Come along, Peter, my son," Shorty assured him.

"I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with you."

The storm grew more violent every minute, limbs were torn from the trees, and fell with a crash, and torrents rushed down from the mountain side, across the road. Si strode on resolutely, as if the disturbance were nothing more than a Summer zephyr. He waded squarely through the raging streams, turning at times to help the next boy to him, strode over the fallen limbs, and took the dashing downpour with stolid indifference.

"Close up, boys! Close up!" shouted Shorty from time to time, "Don't mind a little sprinkle like this. It'll lay the dust, and make marchin' easier. Come along, Peter, my son. I'm not goin' to lose you."

Night suddenly came, with pitchy darkness, but Si steadily forged onward. Then the rain ceased as suddenly as it began, but the road was encumbered with fallen timber and swirling races of muddy water. They seemed more uncomfortable even than when the rain was falling. They were now nearing the mill, and the sound of a fitful musketry fire came to their ears.

"They've sneaked up in the storm to attack the mill," Si called out to Shorty. "Close up and prepare for action."

"Goodness," gasped Gid Mackall, much of whose vim had been soaked out of him by the fearful downpour, and who was oppressed by fatigue, hunger, and the dense blackness of the night in the strange woods. "You don't have to fight when you're wetter'n a drowned rat, and so tired you're ready to drop, do you?"

"That's what you do," said Shorty, wiping off his musket. "That's the way you'll have to do most o' your fightin'. The miserabler you feel the miserabler you want to make the other fellers feel. Boys, turn your guns upside down and let the water run out. Then half-cock 'em, and blow into 'em to clean the water out o' the tubes. Then find a dry rag somewhere about you, and wipe off the nipples. We want every gun to go off when the order is given. Don't anybody load till Si gives the order."

The drenched but excited boys followed his directions with nervous haste. Shorty took one gun after another and examined it, while Si went forward a little ways to reconnoiter. The calm deliberation of the partners steadied the nervous boys.

"Load," called back Si, from the vantage ground of a little knoll, upon which he was standing, trying to see into the darkness beyond. A volley from out in front responded to the sound of his voice, and bullets knocked bark off the big chestnut behind which he had shrewdly taken refuge.

"Jest as I expected, Si," Shorty called back to him. "The rebels have throwed back a squad to watch for us."

"Yes," said Si, coolly, as he stepped back to meet the boys. "There ain't but 10 o' them, though. I counted every flash and located 'em. They're all in a bunch right over there by a dead tree to the left. Move up there quick, aim a little to the left. Aim low, and fire just as we reach the rise. I'll fire first, and the rest of you foller. Try to hit something, every one of you."

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X. THE BOYS HAVE A COUPLE OF LITTLE SKIRMISHES BUT FINALLY GET TO THE MILL

THE time and the surroundings were such as to bring the spirits of the boys to their lowest ebb.

The gloomy, mysterious woods seemed a world's distance away from their homes, friends and assistance.

The long, tiresome tramp, the violent rainstorm, which had soaked them to their skins, and apparently found its way to their hearts; the muddy, slippery road, with torrents rushing across it, the splashing, searching rivulets from the boughs overhead, were all deeply depressing.

The boys huddled together, as if to gain courage by closer contact.

"Gracious, I never supposed they'd pull off a fight at night, when everybody was tired to death and soaked to a gruel," said Alf Russell in a shivery whisper.

"They fought at Hohenlinden at night, and on the snow," answered Monty Scruggs. "But snow's not so bad as rain, and, then, they didn't have these awful woods. I'd feel much better if we was out in a clearing somewhere."

"Come into line to the left, there," commanded Si, in a low tone. "Deploy, one pace apart. Shorty, take the left out there in the bushes. Don't make no noise, step carefully, and don't shoot till I do."

"Keep near me, Pete, and you won't git lost," said Shorty, as he stepped off into the brush.

—"Must I shoot the same time you do, or wait till you shoot?" asked Pete, who seemed less depressed by his surroundings than the others, and mainly eager to get a chance to shoot.

"Don't watch me," cautioned Shorty. "Watch the fellers you are shootin' at, and try to hit 'em. Fire just as soon as you want to after you hear the others."

"I'll bet I'll hit a rebel if anybody does," said Pete with hopeful animation.

They tramped forward a few steps over the spongy ground, and through the dripping bushes.

The musketry fire continued fitfully around the mill in the distance.

They came to the summit of the little rise.

"Hist—halt; lay down, quick," called the watchful Si, in a penetrating voice. "They've loaded agin', and are about to shoot."

He and Shorty were down on their faces as he spoke. The others obeyed more slowly and clumsily. The rebel volley cut the limbs and bushes over their heads, and whistled viciously through the damp air and the darkness.

As little Pete dropped to the ground, his nervous finger touched the trigger and his gun went off up in the air. The others took this as a cue, and banged away as rapidly as they could get their muskets off.

Only Si and Shorty, in dropping, had kept the lay of the ground in view, and without rising they deliberately aimed their pieces whither the volley had come and fired. A suppressed yell of pain came from the other side.

"We salted one of 'em, anyway," chuckled Shorty, as he raised on his knee to reload his gun.

"Gosh all Chrismus," said Si, using his most formidable swear-word, for he was very angry. "What was you brats shootin' at? Squirrels or angels? A rebel'd had to be 80 cubits high, like old Haman, for one o' you to've hit him. Lots o' good o' your packin' around guns and cartridges, if you're goin' to waste your ammynition on the malaria in the clouds. Load agin, now, carefully, and when you shoot agin be sure to fetch something. I'll take my ramrod to the next boy that I ketch shootin' higher'n a man's head. This ain't no Fourth-o'-July business. Our job's te kill them whangdoodles over there, and I want you to 'tend strictly to that."

The threat of a real boyish thrashing and the cool, matter-of-fact way that Si and Shorty conducted themselves—precisely as if chopping trees or mowing a field—steadied the boys wonderfully.

"They're about ready to shoot agin," Si spoke down the line, in a penetrating whisper. "Everybody hug the ground, and watch the flashes. Each feller git a good line on the flash straight in front of him, and let the hound have a chunk o' lead just below his belt. If you're all real good, and shoot just right, I'll take you on a rush right at them fellers, and we'll scatter what's left like a flock o' quail. Lay low. There it comes agin. Lay low."

An irregular volley burnt out in the blackness beyond. The bullets sang around much closer than before, and several of them struck near Si, one landing in the leaves and moss directly in front of him, and throwing a wet sprinkle in his face.

"Like the parrot, I was talkin' too much and too loud," thought Si. "They wuz all reachin' for me, and one feller made a mighty good line shot. Le's see if I can't better him."

He drew down in his sights as carefully as he could in the darkness, and pulled the trigger. As the smoke thinned out a little he thought he saw something beyond which indicated a man staggering and falling.

This time the boys seemed to be firing effectively. There was a commotion in the woods beyond, and the sound of groans on the damp air.

"Raise up!" shouted Si. "Forward! Forward! Jump 'em. Jump 'em before they kin load agin!"

Loading his gun with the practiced ease of a veteran as he rushed forward, Si led his squad directly against the position of the rebels. Part of the rebels had promptly run away, as they heard Si order the charge, but part boldly stood their ground, and were nervously reloading, or fixing bayonets, as the squad came crashing through the brush. One of the rebels fired a hasty, ineffectual shot, and by its light Shorty saw the nervous little Pete, who had torn off his cumbering haversack, letting his hat go with it, slip between him and Si, and gain a pace in advance.

"Git back, you little rat," said Shorty, reaching out a long arm, catching the boy by the collar, and yanking him back. "Git behind me and stay there."

The flash revealed another rebel fumbling for a cap. Shorty's gun came down, and the rebel fell, shot through the shoulder. The rebel leader, a long haired, lathy man, with the quickness of a wildcat, sprang at Si with his bayonet fixed. Heavy-footed and deliberate as Si usually was, when the electricity of a fight was in him there was no lack of celerity. He caught the rebel's bayonet on his musket-barrel and warded it off so completely that the rebel shot by him in the impetus of his own rush. As he passed Si delivered a stunning blow on the back of his head with his gun-barrel.

"That zouave drill was a mighty good thing, after all," thought Si, as he turned from his prostrate foe to the others.

While this was going on, the boys were imitating Shorty's example, getting their guns loaded, and banging away as fast as they did so into the rebels, who went down under the shots, or ran off, leaving one of their number, a tall, lank mountaineer, who seemed beside himself with rage. He had grasped his empty gun by the stock, and was swinging it around his head, yelling fierce insults and defiance to the whole race o' Yankees.

"Come on, you infernal pack o' white-livered, nigger-stealin', house- robbin', hell-desarvin' hypocrites," he shouted. "I kin lick the hull bilin' o' yo'uns. This is my wounded pardner here, and yo'uns can't have neither me nor him till yo'uns down me, which y' can't do. Come on, y' pigeon-livered cowards."

The boys who had pressed lip near him, shrank back a little, out of possible range of that violently brandished musket, and began loading their guns.

Shorty had stopped for an instant to turn over into an easier position the rebel he had shot.

Si paced up. His gun was loaded, and he could have easily brought the rebel down. But the rebel's devotion to his partner touched him.

Don't Anybody Shoot. 119

"Don't shoot, boys," he commanded; "leave me to 'tend to him. Say, Johnny," he addressed the rebel, in a placatory way, "don't make a fool o' yourself. Come down, we've got you, dead. Drop that gun."

"Go to brimstone blazes," shouted the rebel. "If yo'uns have got me, why don't y' take me. I kin lick the hull caboodle o' y' sneakin' mulatters. Come on, why don't y'?"

"Give him a wad, Si," said Shorty, reloading his own gun. "We haint no time to lose. They need us over there."

"No, don't anybody shoot," commanded Si; "he's just crazy about his partner. He's too brave a man to kill. Say, Johnny, have a little sense. We haint goin' to hurt your partner, nor you, if you'll behave. Drop that gun at once, and surrender."

"Go to blazes," retorted the rebel, swinging his gun more wildly than ever. "Yo'uns is all liars. No dependence kin be placed on y'. If y' want me, come and git me."'

Shorty had begun to think the thing somewhat humorous. "Look here, Johnny," said he, "wouldn't you like a big chaw o' navy terbacker—bright plug. Genuine Yankee plug? Swingin' that ere gun that way is awful tiresome."

"Eh—What's that?" said the rebel, startled by the new proposition and its coolness.

"I say, don't you want a big chaw o' terbacker? You must need it. I always do after I've bin workin' hard. Drop your gun, and have one with me. We're Injiannians, and we don't mean no harm to your partner, nor to you. We'll take care o' him, if he's hurt. Here, cut your own chaw."

"Air yo'uns from Injianny?" said the rebel, bringing his gun down to a less menacing attitude. "I've done got two brothers in Injianny, and I hear they'uns 've done inlisted in Yankee rijiments. Mebbe yo'uns know 'em."

"Mebbe we do," said Shorty, handing him a long plug and his knife. "But we hain't time to talk it over now. We'll do that in the mornin', when business ain't so pressin'. Le' me hold your gun while you cut your terbacker."

"Now, look here," said Si, "time's jumpin', and we must talk quick. If we parole you, will you stay here, and take care o' your partner and the others, and be here in the mornin', when we send for you?"

"You won't send for me, if yo'uns is a-gwine on ter fout we'uns up at the mill. We'uns chaw yo'uns up, or run y' outen the country."

"We'll take care o' that," said Si sharply. "Will you promise on your honor to stay with these men, and take care o' them till daylight, if we don't come sooner?"

"Sartin,—'pon honor," answered the rebel, with his mouth full of tobacco.

"All right, then. Load at will. Load! Forward!—March!" commanded Si.

Si moved on cautiously, for he feared that the runaways had told those attacking the mill about his advance, and would bring them all down upon him. The dying down of the firing about the mill confirmed this opinion. He warned his boys to make as little noise as possible, and went ahead of them some distance, to reconnoiter, slipping along the side of the road, under the shadow of the trees. He arranged a system of signals with Shorty, by which one click of his gunlock meant halt, and two to come ahead. Presently he came in sight of the broad race which ran to the mill. The starlight was sufficient to show its width and its banks, with the logs lying along, which had been cut when it was dug. A bridge crossed the race for the road to the mill. Beyond the ground rose sharply, and looking at the crest against the sky, he could see the rebels, one by one, file over, and come down to where they could crouch behind the logs and ambuscade the bridge.

Si clicked his gunlock, and waited till he had counted 25 rebels gathered there, which seemed to be all, as no more appeared. Then he slipped back to Shorty, and hurriedly explained the situation.

The boys listened with sinking hearts. More than three times as many rebels as they themselves numbered, and perhaps fiercer and stronger than those they had already encountered.

The elation of their recent victory subsided. Again the woods became ominously dark and gloomy, the soaking dampness very depressing. They huddled together to brace each other up.

"Si," said Shorty, "didn't you say that it was a squad o' the Maumee Muskrats in the mill, and that we wuz goin' to relieve 'em."

"Yes, and the Orderly said that railroad 'Mick'—Hennessey—was the Sarjint in command."

"O, that bog-trottin' old section boss, that hairy-handed artist with the long shovel, is there, is he with his crucifix and his prayers to the Saints. That's all right. He's bin stormin' and swearin' ever since the fight begun; because he's bin obliged to stay inside and shoot, and instid of making a grand rush and settling things, according to Donnybrook Fair rules. I tell you what you do. You work the boys carefully down through the brush toward the race, and git 'em into position in easy range of the rebels, covering 'em behind logs. I'll take a circuit around to the left, and git over to the hill, behind the rebels, and near enough the mill for Hennessey to hear me. Then I'll fire a shot and yell for Hennessey. He knows my voice, and he'll bring his men out like a pack o' hornets. Then you let into the rebels from your side. They can't git across the race at you, and we'll have 'em where we kin whipsaw 'em."

"Shorty," said Si admiringly, "Gen. Grant 'll hear o' you some day, and then Co. Q will lose its brightest star, but the army'll gain a great General."

"I know it; I know it," said Shorty, modestly; "but don't stop to talk about it now. I think I've got the lay o' the mill in mind. I'll just cut around that way. Don't shoot till you hear me."

Si quietly deployed his boys to the left of the road, and worked them through the brush until they came to the crest overlooking the mill- race. They took readily to this sort of work. They had all hunted rabbits over the hills of southern Indiana, and they came into position so softly that the rebels beyond did not suspect their presence.

Then came a long wait for the signal from Shorty. The rebels seemed to get tired first. Presently they could be seen moving around, and Si had hard work restraining his squad from shooting at the tempting marks. Then the rebels began talking, at first in murmurs, and then louder. There seemed to be a division of opinion among them. Those who had been run back were sure that the Yankee were coming on to the relief of their comrades in the mill. The others thought that their comrades had run the other away just as fast.

"I tell you, hit's no use to wait for they'uns no longer," said one strong voice. "Them Yankees is runnin' back to their camps as fast as they'uns's legs 'll carry they'uns. If yo'uns 'd had any sand, and stood yer ground, you'd 'a seed 'em. But yo' yaller hammers allers git the ager when ever a cap's busted, and run yer rabbit-gizzards out."

"Y're a liar," hotly responded another voice. "Thar was more'n 50 o' them Yankees, if thar was a man. We fit 'em awful, before we give away, and they'd killed Burt Dolson and Bob Whittyker, and I don't know how many more. They come bulgin' right on toward the mill, arter they'd reformed. I know hit, bekase Eph and me staid and watched 'em, and shot at 'em, till we thought hit best to run back and warn ye."

"Ye wuz in a powerful hurry to warn us," sneered the other. "Well, thar's no Yankees over thar, and none haint a-comin' till daylight. I've ketched all the ager and rhematiz here that I'm a-gwine ter. Le's go back and salivate them fellers in the mill, and set fire to it."

This seemed to be the prevailing sentiment, and Si began to fear that they would all go, and might intercept Shorty. He was on the point of ordering the boys to fire, and attract their attention, when Shorty's rifle rang out, and the next instant came a roar from Shorty's powerful lungs, with each word clear and distinct:

"Hennessy—you—red—mouthed—Mick—come out. The 200th Injianny is—here. Come out—with a rush—you—imported spalpeen—and jump—'em—in—the—rear!"

"Now, boys," commanded Si, "keep cool, pick your man, and fire low. I'm goin' to take the feller that's bin doin' the big talkin'."

Each of the boys had already picked his man, and was eagerly waiting the word. Their fire threw their enemies into confusion, and as their guns rattled, the barricaded doors of the mill were thrown open, and Hennessey rushed out with a wild Irish "hurroo." The rebels incontinently fled, without an attempt at resistance.

After it was ascertained that every unhurt rebel was running for dear life to get away, after Hennessey and his squad had gathered up the wounded and carried them into the mill, and after the boys had yelled themselves hoarse over their victory gained with such unexpected ease, they suddenly remembered that they were so tired that they could scarcely drag one foot after another, and hungrier than young wolves at the end of a hard Winter.

"Gewhillikins," murmured Jim Humphreys, "I wonder when we're going to have supper. I'm as holler as a stovepipe."

"You've got your suppers in your haversacks," said Si. "We'll go into the mill and build a fire and make some coffee and fry some meat."

"In my haversack," said Jim ruefully, after they had entered the mill, and he had run his hand into his forgotten haversack, and withdrawn it covered with a viscid greasy mush. "My haversack's full o' water, that's soaked everything else in it to a gruel."

"So's mine; so's mine," echoed the rest, as they examined.

"Confound it," said Si' wrathfully, as he looked into one after another. "Didn't none o' you have sense enough to fasten down the covers carefully, so's to keep the water out? Here it is—salt and sugar and coffee, bread and greasy pork all in one nasty mess. I declare, you don't seem to have the sense you wuz born with. You've bin breakin' yourselves down luggin' around 10 or 15 pounds o' water, besides spilin' your rations."

"Probably Sarjint Hennessey has some rations that he kin give us," suggested Shorty, who was genuinely sorry for the poor boys.

"Dade I haint—not a smidgeon," answered Hennessey. "We ixpicted ye's to git here this forenoon and relieve us, and we et up ivery spoonful of our grub for breakfast, so's to lighten us for a quick march back to camp. They've not bin runnin' in the mill for several days, and've carted off ivery bit of the male they ground. We're nigh starved oursilves, but we've had a lovely little foight, and we forgive ye's for not coming airlier. Oi wouldn't 've missed that last rush on thim divil's for a month's double rations."

"Well," said Si, encouragingly, "we'll have to make mine and Shorty's rations go around as well as they kin, among all of you. Fish the meat out o' your haversacks, boys, and wash the dope off it. It ain't spiled, anyway. We kin each of us have a little to eat tonight, and we'll trust to Providence for termorrer."

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XI. SHORTY GIVES THE BOYS THEIR FIRST LESSON IN FORAGING

WITH the elasticity of youth the boys slept away their fatigue during the night, but woke up the next morning ravenously hungry.

"What in the world are we goin' to do for grub, Si?" asked Shorty, as soon as he got his eyes fairly open.

"Oi know what Oi'm goin' to do," said Hennessey. "Oi'm goin to show the foinest pace av shprinting back to camp that has been sane in these parts since our roight bruk that day at Chickamaugy. No grass'll grow under me fate, Oi tell yez. And as I pass through your camp Oi'll foind yer Captain, and tell the fix you're in, and to sind out some rations."

"But even if he does send them at once, they can't git here till evenin', and I hate powerfully to let him and the rest know that we didn't have sense enough to take care o' our victuals after we'd drawed 'em," said Si.

"If it was only one, or even two days, I'd let the boys starve it out, as a good lesson to 'em," said Shorty. "But three seems like cruelty to dumb beasts."

"But what'll they say about us in camp?" groaned Si. "They'll have the grand laugh on me and you, and every one o' the boys. I'd ruther go on quarter rations for a month than stand the riggin' they'll give us, and have Capt. McGillicuddy give me one look when he asks the question about how we come to lose all our rations so soon? He'll think me a purty Sarjint to send out into the country in charge o' men, and you a fine Corpril."

"Say," said Shorty, his face illuminated with a bright idea. "We might report the rations 'lost in action.' That'd fix it fine. We had two good fights, and come out ahead. That'll tickle the Captain so that he won't be partickler what we report."

"Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket."

"But we didn't lose 'em in action, and to say so'd be a lie," answered Si, whose conscience had none of the easy elasticity of his partner's. "We could report 'em burnt up by lightnin','but we won't. They was lost by sheer, dumbed carelessness, that me and you and the boys should knowed better than to've allowed. That's all there is of it, and that's what I'm goin' to report, if I have to."

"Great Jehosephat," exploded Shorty; "you kin certainly be the stubbornest mule over nothin', Si Klegg, that I ever seen. We've done fightin' enough to excuse sich a report, or any that we've a mind to make."

"Nothin' kin justify a lie," persisted the obdurate Si.

"Holy smoke! bigger men than you—lots bigger—have squared up their accounts that way. Didn't all the Captains in the rijiment, and the Quartermaster and Commissary, and, for what I know, the Chaplain and the Colonel, git clean bills o' health after the battle o' Stone River, by reportin' everything that they couldn't find 'lost in action?'"

"Yis," added Hennessey, "and didn't my Captain, after Chickamaugy, git us all new uniforms and complete kits, by reportin' iverything 'lost in action?' Smart man, my Captain, Oi tell yez."

"Well, I don't think any the more o' them for it. We spiled our rations before the fightin' begun, they'd bin spiled if there'd bin no fightin', and I haint going to send no other words, if I've got to send any word."

"Who the divil's goin' to carry this word, Oi'd like to know, Misther Klegg?" broke in Hennessey. "Are you goin' to put words into my mouth, Misther Klegg? Oi'll tell your Captain just fwhat Oi plaze, about you and your foight and your rations. Oi want no more worrids wid ye. Attintion, min! Shoulder, a-r-m-s! Roight face! Forward, foile left!—M- a-r-c-h!"

"I s'pose I ain't responsible for any o' the fairy tales with which that wild Mick'll fill up the Captain," said Si, self-consolingly, as Hennessey and his squad marched away in quick time. "He'll put a rich, red, County Connaught color on everything that's happened out here, and the Captain'll believe as much as suits him. Anyhow, Hennessey'll not say anything to our disadvantage, and probably the Captain'll send out some rations by fast mule express."

"Yes," accorded Shorty; "we'll git some rations from camp by this evenin'. Cap will look out for that. Meanwhile, I'll take out two or three o' the boys on a scout into the country, to see if we can't pick up something to eat."

"Humph," said Si, skeptically, "you'll find mighty poor pickin', after them Ohio boys 's bin out here three days. What they haint taken has been rooted in the ground."

"Yes; they're awful foragers and thieves," assented Shorty. "All Ohio boys is. I'm glad I'm from Injianny. Still, I've generally bin able to find something, even after the Ohio boys had bin there."

"Well, I think we'd better first go back and see about them rebels that we wounded last night. They may be sufferin' awfully, and we oughtn't to think about something to eat, before doin' what we kin for them."

"That's so," assented Shorty. "I'd a-gone back last night, but we was all so dead tired."

"Well, I'll take two o' the boys and go back. You stay here with the rest, and hold the mill. I'll git back as soon's I kin, and then you kin take a couple o' the boys and go out foragin'."

Calling Alf Russell and Monty Scruggs to follow him, Si started back to the scene of the skirmish of the night before. The woods looked totally different, under the bright Spring sunshine, from what they had seemed in the chill, wet blackness of the previous night. Buds were bursting and birds singing, and all nature seemed very blithe and inspiring.

"Gracious, what a difference daylight makes in the woods," murmured Monty Scruggs. "Tain't a bit like Hohenlinden.

"'Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun, Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout 'mid their sulphurous canopy."

"You'd think, from the way the bird 's singing, and the flowers blooming, that there'd never been a gun fired within a hundred miles o' here."

"Seems like we only dreamed all that happened last night," accorded Alf Russell. "There's nothing in the woods or the ground that looks as it did then, and I can't hardly make myself believe that this is the way we come."

"Well, here's something that'll convince you it wasn't a dream," said Si, as they made their way through the broken and trampled brush, and came to a little knoll, on which the final fight had been made, and where were gathered the wounded rebels. There were three of these; the man whom Shorty had shot in the shoulder, the one whom Si knocked down by a stunning blow on the head, and the one who had been hit in the thigh by a shot from the boys, and who was the "pardner" of the recalcitrant man of the previous evening. He was still there, caring for his comrades. The men who had been shot were so faint from loss of blood that they could scarcely move, and the man whom Si had struck was only slowly recovering consciousness.

The unhurt rebel was standing there with his gun in hand, and had apparently been watching their approach for some time.

"My parole was out at daylight," he said, as they came up. "The sun's now nearly an hour high. I ain't obleeged to be good no more, and I could' 've drapped one o' yo'uns when y' fust turned offen the road, and got away. I s'pose I'd orter've done hit, and I'd a great mind ter, but suthin' sorter held me back. Onderstand that?"

"You'd a' bin a nice man to've shot at us when we wuz comin' to help your comrades," said Si, walking up coolly toward him, and getting near enough to prevent his leveling his gun, while he held his own ready for a quick blow with the barrel. "We needn't've come back here at all, except that we felt it right to take care o' the men that got hurt."

"Come back to take keer o' the men that yo'uns swatted last night?" said the rebel incredulously. "That haint natural. 'Taint Yankee-like. What'd yo'uns keer for 'em, 'cept to see if they'uns's dead yit, and mebbe gin 'em a prod with the bayonit to help 'em along? But they'uns's mouty nigh dead, now. They'uns can't last much longer. But I'll kill the fust one o' yo'uns that tries to prod one o' they'uns with a bayonit. Let they'uns alone. They'll soon be gone."

"What're you talkin' about, you dumbed fool?" said Si, irritably. "We haint no Injuns nor heathens, to kill wounded men. We're Injiannians and Christians, what read the Bible, and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies, and carin' for them what despitefully use you—that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."

"Does your Bible say that ere?" asked the rebel.

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, hit must be a new-fangled kind of a Yankee Bible. The only Bible I ever seed was a piece o' one that used t' be in dad's house, and I've done heared strangers read hit aloud hundreds o' times, and hit said nothin' like that. Hit had lots in it 'bout killin' every man and man- child, and hewin' 'em to pieces afore the Lord, but nothin' 'bout lovin' and takin' keer o' them that wuz fernest ye."

"Well, it's in there, all the same," said Si impatiently, "and you must mind it, same's we do. Come, drop that gun, and help us take care o' these men. They ain't goin' to die. We won't let 'em. They're all right. Just faint from loss o' blood. We kin fix 'em up. Set your gun agin' that beech there, and go to the branch and git some water to wash their wounds, and we'll bring 'em around all right."

There was something so masterful in Si's way, that the rebel obeyed. Si set his own gun down against a hickory, in easy reach, and had the boys do the same. He had naturally gained a good deal of knowledge of rough surgery in the army, and he proceeded to put it to use. He washed the wounds, stayed the flow of blood, and to take the rising fever out of the hurts, he bound on them fresh, green dockleaves, wet with water. After the man he had struck had had his face washed, and his head thoroughly doused with cold water, he recovered rapidly and was soon able to sit up, and then rise weakly to his feet.

The rebel looked on wonderingly.

"Well, yo'uns is as good doctrin' hurts as ole Sary Whittleton, and she's a natural bone-setter," he said.

"Well, don't stand around and gawk,", said Si snappishly. "Help. What's your name?"

"Gabe Brimster."

"Well, Gabe, go down to the branch and git some more water, quick as you kin move them stumps o' your'n. Give the men all they want to drink, and then pour some on their wounds. Then go there and cut some o' them pawpaws, and peel their bark, to make a litter to carry your pardner back to the mill. Boys, look around for guns. Smash all you kin find on that rock there, so they won't be of no more use. Bust the locks good, and bend the barrels. Save two to make the handles of the litter."

Si proceeded to deftly construct a litter out of the two guns, with some sticks that he cut with a knife, and bound with pawpaw strips.

A few days before, Si, while passing near the hospital, saw a weak convalescent faint and fall. He rushed to the Surgeon's tent, and that officer being busy, handed him a small bottle with a metal top, and filled with strong ammonia, telling him to unscrew the top and hold the bottle under the man's nose. He did so, with the effect of reviving him. Si thrust the bottle into his pocket, to help the man back to the hospital, and forgot all about it, until one after another of his present patients overdid himself, had a relapse, and fainted away. Si happened to feel his bottle, drew it out, unscrewed the top, thrust it under their noses, and revived them.

Gabs's eyes opened wider at each performance. He had never seen a bottle with a metal top, or one that unscrewed, or anything that seemed to effect such wonderful changes by merely pointing it at a man. His mountaineer intellect, prone to "spells" and "charms," saw in it at once an instrument of morta: witchcraft. With a paling face, he began edging toward his gun. Busy as Si had been, he had kept constantly in mind the possibility of Gabe's attempting some mischief, and did not let himself lose sight of the rebel's gun. He quickly rose, and with a few strides, placed himself between Gabe and his gun.

Mr. Yank, Don't Conjure Me. 135

"Where are you goin'?" he said sternly.

"I'm a-gwine away," replied the man, in terror-stricken accents. "I'm a- gwine away mouty quick. I don't want to stay here no longer."

"Indeed you're not goin' away. You'll stay right with us, and help us take care o' your comrades."

"I'm a-gwine away, I tell y'," shrieked Gabe. "I'm gwine right away. I'm skeered o' yo'uns. Yo'uns is no doctor, nor no sojer. Yo'uns is a conjure-man, and a Yankee conjure-man, too—wust kind. Yo'uns 've bin puttin' spells on them men, and yo'uns'll put a spell on me. I've felt hit from the fust. I'm a-gwine away. Le'me go, quick."

Si caught the man roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, and raised his right threateningly. It still had the bottle in it. "You're not goin' a step, except with us," he said. "Go back there, and 'tend to your business as I told you, or I'll break you in two."

The sight of the dreadful bottle pointed at him completely unnerved the rebel. He fell on his knees.

"O, Mister Yank—Mister Conjure-man! don't put no spell on me. Pray to God, don't! I had one on me wunst, when I was little, and liked to've died from hit. I haint no real rebel. I wuz conscripted into the army, or I wouldn't be foutin' yo'uns. I won't fout no more, if yo'uns'll not put a spell on me. 'Deed I won't! I swar to God I wont!"

And he raised his right hand in testimony.

"Put a spell on you? Conjure you? What dumbed nonsense!" ejaculated Si, and then his eyes caught the rebel's fastened on the bottle in his hand, and a gleam of the meaning entered his mind. He had no conception of the dread the mountaineers have of being "conjured," but he saw that something about the bottle was operating terrifically on the rebel's mind and took advantage of it. He was in too much of a hurry to inquire critically what it was, but said: "Well, I won't do nothin' to you, so long's you're good, but mind that you're mighty good, and do just as I say, or I'll fix you. Git up, now, and take hold o' your pardner's feet, and help me lift him on the litter. Then you take hold o' the front handles. Monty, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, and take hold o' the rear handles. The two o' you carry this man back. Alf, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, put your arm under this man's, and help him along. I'll help this man."

They slowly made their way back toward the mill. As they came on the crest of the last rise, they saw Shorty and the rest eagerly watching for them. Shorty and the others ran forward and helped them bring the men in. Shorty was particularly helpful to the man he had shot. He almost carried him in to the mill, handling him as tenderly as if a child, fixed a comfortable place for him on the floor with his own blankets, and took the last grains of his coffee to make him a cup. This done, he said:

"I'm goin' out into the country to try and find some chickens to make some broth for you men. Come along, Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall and little Pete."

The country roundabout was discouragingly poor, and had been thoroughly foraged over. But Shorty had a scent for cabins that were hidden away from the common roads, and so escaped the visitations of ordinary foragers. These were always miserably poor, but generally had a half- dozen chickens running about, and a small store of cornmeal and sidemeat. Ordinarily he would have passed one of these in scorn, because to take any of their little store would starve the brood of unkempt children that always abounded. But now, they were his hope. He had been playing poker recently with his usual success, and as the bets were in Confederate money, he had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States." He would make some mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal, chickens and sidemeat. They would know where to get more, and so the transaction would be a pleasant one all around.

In the meanwhile, little Pete had visions of killing big game in the mountain woods. The interminable forest suggested to him dreams of bear, deer, buffalo, elk, and all the animals he had read about. It would be a great thing to bring down an elk or a deer with his Springfield rifle, and then be escorted back' to camp in triumph, with the other boys carrying his game. He kept circling through the woods, in sight or hearing of the others, expecting every minute to come upon some animal that would fill his youthful sanguine hopes.

Shorty at last found a poor little cabin such as he had been looking for. It was hidden away in a little cove, and had never been visited by the men of either army. It had the usual occupants—a weak-eyed, ague- smitten man, who was so physically worthless that even the rebel conscripters rejected him; a tall, gaunt woman, with a vicious shrillness in her voice and a pipe in her mouth; a half score of mangy yellow dogs, and an equal number of wild, long-haired, staring children. They had a little "jag" of meal in a bag, a piece of sidemeat, and a half-dozen chickens. The man had that morning shot an opossum, lean from its Winter fasting. Shorty rejected this contemptuously.

"I've bin mighty hungry in my time," said he, "but I never got quite so low down as to eat anything with a tail like a rat. That'd turn my stummick if I was famishin'."

The man looked on Shorty's display of wealth with lack-luster eyes, but his wife was fascinated, and quickly closed up a deal which conveyed to Shorty all the food that they had. Just as Shorty had completed payment, there came a shot from little Pete's rifle, and the next instant that youth appeared at the edge of the cornpatch extending up hill from the cabin, hatless, and yelling at the top of his voice. Shorty and the others picked up their guns and took position behind the trees.

"What's the matter, Pete?" asked Shorty, as the boy came up, breathless from his long run. "Rebels out there?"

"No," gasped Pete. "I was hunting out there for a deer, or a elk, or a bear, when suddenly I come acrost the queerest kind of an animal. It looked more like a hog than anything else, yet it wasn't a hog, for it was thinner'n a cat. It had long white tusks, longer'n your hand, that curled up from its mouth, little eyes that flashed fire, and great long bristles on his back, that stood straight up. I shot at it and missed it, and then it run straight at me. I made for the fence as hard as I could, but it outrun me and was gaining on me every jump. Just as I clim the fence it a-most ketched me, and made a nip not six inches from my leg. I could hear him gnash them awful tusks o' his'n."

"Humph," said the woman. "He's run acrost Stevenson's old boar, that runs in them woods up thar, and is mouty savage this time o' year. He'd take a laig offen a youngster quicker'n scat, if he ketched him. He done well to run."

Shorty and the others walked up to the fence and looked over. There was the old razor-back King of the woods still raging around sniffing the air of combat.

"Why, it's only a hog, Pete!" said Shorty.

"Only a hog!" murmured Pete with shamed heart.

"That a hog?" echoed the others. "Well, that's the queerest looking hog I ever saw."

"It's a hog all the same," Shorty assured them. "A genuine razor-back hog. But he's got the secession devil in him like the people, and you want to be careful of him. He ain't fit to eat or I'd kill him. Let's git back to the mill."

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XII. THE OPENING OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys around Chattanooga in the busy days of the Spring of 1864.

Never before, in all his countless millions of journeys around the globe, had he seen a human force of such tremendous aggressive power concentrated on such a narrow space. He may have seen larger armies—though not many—but he had never seen 100,000 such veterans as those—originally of as fine raw material as ever gathered under a banner, and trained to war by nearly three years of as arduous schooling as men ever knew, which sifted out the weaklings, the incompetents, the feeblewilled by the boisterous winnowing of bitter war.

Thither had been gathered 35,000 of the Army of the Tennessee, who had "Fort Donelson," "Shiloh," "Corinth," "Chickasaw Bayou," "Big Black," "Jackson," and "Vicksburg" in letters of gold on their tattered regimental banners, and whom Sherman proudly boasted were "the best soldiers on earth." The courtly, idolized McPherson was their leader, with such men as John A. Logan, T. E. G. Ransom, Frank P. Blair and P. J. Osterhaus as lieutenants and subordinates.

There was the Army of the Cumberland, 60,000 strong, from which all dross had been burned by the fierce fires of Shiloh, Perryville, Stone River and Chickamauga; and the campaigns across two States. "The noblest Roman of them all," grand old "Pap" Thomas, was in command, with Howard, Stanley, Newton, Wood, Palmer, Davis, Joe Hooker, Williams and Geary as his principal lieutenants.

And thither came—15,000 strong—all of the Army of the Ohio who could be spared from garrisoning dearly-won Kentucky and East Tennessee. They were men who had become inured to hunting their enemies down in mountain fastnesses, and fighting them wherever they could be found. At their head was Gen. J. M. Schofield, whom the Nation had come to know from his administration of the troublous State of Missouri. Gens. Hovey, Hascall and Cox were division commanders.

With what an air of conscious power; of evident mastery of all that might confront them; of calm, unflinching determination for the conflict, those men moved and acted. They felt themselves part of a mighty machine, that had its work before it, and would move with resistless force to perform the appointed task.

The men fell instinctively into their ranks in the companies. Without an apparent effort the companies became regiments, the regiments quietly, but with swift certainty, swung into their places in the brigade, and the brigades massed up noiselessly into divisions and corps.

And while the 100,000 veterans were drilling, organizing and manuvering the railroad was straining every one of its iron and steel tendons to bring in food and ammunition to supply the mighty host, and provide a store from which it could draw when it went forth upon its great errand. There were 35,000 horses to be fed, in addition to the 100,000 veterans, and so the baled hay made heaps that rivalled in size the foothills of the mountains. The limitless cornfields of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois heaped up their golden harvests in other hillocks. Every mountain pass was filled with interminable droves of slow-footed cattle, bringing forward "army beef on the hoof." Boxes of ammunition and crackers, and barrels of pork covered acres, and the railroad brought them in faster than the hundreds of regimental teams could haul them out.

There is no place in the world where the assembling of such a mighty host could be seen to such an advantage as at Chattanooga. The mountains that tower straight up into the clouds around the undulating plain on which the town stands form a glorious natural amphitheater about an arena for gigantic dramas.

Naturally, the boys were big-eyed all the time with the sights that filled the landscape near and far. Wherever they looked they were astonished, and when in a march they came out on a crest that commanded a wide view, they could not help halting, to drink all its wonders in. Even the experienced Si and Shorty were as full of amazement as they, and watched with fascination the spectacle of mighty preparation and concentrated power.

One day they got a pass and took the boys over to Lookout Mountain, for a comprehensive survey of the whole scene. They trudged over the steep, rough, winding road up the mountainside, and mads their way to Pulpit Rock, on the "nose" of the mountain, which commands a view that is hardly equalled in any country. From it they overlooked, as upon a map, the wide plain around Chattanooga, teeming with soldiers and horses, and piled-up war material, the towering line of Mission Ridge, the fort- crowned hills, the endless square miles of white camps.

"'The King sat on the rocky brow That looks o'er sea-born Salamis,

And ships by thousands lay below, And men and Nations, all were his,'

murmured Monty Scruggs. "I didn't suppose there was as many soldiers in all the world before."

"Si," said Shorty, "we thought old Rosecrans had heaped up the measure when we started out from Nashville for Stone River. But that was only the beginning for the gang he got together for the Tullyhomy campaign, and 'taint more than onct to what old Sherman's goin' to begin business with. I like it. I like to see any man start into a game with a full hand and a big stack o' chips."

"Well, from the talk that comes down from headquarters," said Si, "he may need every man. We've never had enough men so far. The rebels have always had more men than we did, and had the advantage of position. We only won by main strength and bull-headedness, and Rosecrans's good management. The rebels are straining every nerve to put up the fight o' their lives, and they say old Jo Johnston's got nearly as many men over there at Buzzard Roost as we have, and works that beat them we hustled Bragg out of around Tullyhomy."

"Well, let's have it as soon as possible," said Shorty. "I'm anxious to see if we can't make another Mission Ridge over there at Buzzard Roost, and run them fellers clean back to the Gulf of Mexico. But, great Jehosephat, won't there be a Spring freshet when all them men and horses and cattle break camp and start out over the country."

"Goodness, what kin I do to keep from gitting lost in all that crowd?" wailed Pete Skidmore, and the others looked as if his fears also struck their hearts.

"Just stick closs to the 200th Injianny and to me, and you won't git lost, Pete," said Shorty. "The 200th Injianny's your home, and all real nice boys stay around home."

They made a little fire on the broad, flat surface of Pulpit Rock, boiled some coffee, and ate their dinner there, that they might watch the wonderful panorama without interruption. As the afternoon, advanced, they saw an unusual commotion in the camps, and the sound of enthusiastic cheering floated faintly up to their lofty perch.

"I'll bet a big red apple orders to move has come," said Si. "Le's git back to camp as quick as possible."

They hurried down the mountain-side, and turned sharply to the right into the road to Rossville Gap.

"Yes, the orders to move has come," said Shorty. "See them big fires, and the boys burnin' up things."

In every camp the cheering men were making bonfires of the furnishings of their Winter camps. Chairs, benches, tables, checker-boards, cupboards, what-nots, etc., which had cost them considerable pains to procure, and upon which they had lavished no little mechanical skill, and sometimes artistic ornamentation, were ruthlessly thrown to feed the joyful fires which blazed in each camp which had been lucky enough to receive orders. The bands were playing, to emphasize and give utterance to the rejoicings of the men.

Shorty took little Pete by the hand to assist him in keeping up with the rapid pace Si and he set up to get back to their own camp, and participate in its demonstrations.

"Of course, our rijimint's goin' too—goin' to have the advance," Si said to Shorty, more than anything else to quiet a little disturbing fear that would creep in. "They wouldn't leave it behind to guard one o' these mud-piles they call forts, would they?"

"They never have yit," answered Shorty, hopefully. "They say old Sherman is as smart as they make 'em. He knows a good rijimint when he sees it, and he's certain to want the 200th Injianny in the very foremost place. Hustle along, boys."

As they neared their camp they were delighted to find it in a similar uproar to the others, with the men cheering, the brigade band playing, and the men throwing everything they could find on the brightly blazing bonfires. Ordinarily, such a long march as they had made to the top of the Lookout Mountain and back again would have been very tiresome, but in the enthusiasm of the occasion they forgot their fatigue—almost forgot their hunger.

"The orders are," the Orderly-Sergeant explained to Si, as they were cooking supper, "that we're to move out tomorrow morning in light marching order, three days' rations, 80 rounds of cartridges, only blankets, no tents, but one wagon to a regiment, and one mule to a company to carry ammunition and rations. O, we're stripped down to the skin for a fight, I tell you. It's to be business from the first jump, and we'll be right in it. We're to have the advance, and clear away the rebel cavalry and pickets, to open up the road for the rest of the division. You'll find your rations and ammunition in front of my tent. Draw 'em and get everything ready, and go to sleep as soon as possible, for we'll skin out of here at the first peep of day. There's a whole passel of sassy rebel cavalry out in front, that's been entirely too familiar and free, and we want to get a good whack at them before they know what's up."

And the busy Orderly passed on to superintend other preparations in the company.

After drawing and dividing the rations and cartridges. Si gave the boys the necessary instruction about having their things ready so that they could get them in the dark the next morning, and ordered them to disregard the bonfires and mirth-making, and lie down to get all the sleep they could, in preparation for the hard work of the next day. Then, like the rest of the experienced men, who saw that the campaign was at length really on, and this would be the last opportunity for an indefinite while to write, he sat down to write short letters to his mother and to Annabel.

Influenced by the example, Shorty thought he ought to write to Maria. He had received a second letter from her the day that he had gone out to the mill, and its words had filled his soul with a gladness that passed speech. The dispassionate reader would not have seen anything in it to justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full of errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these. Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand, secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far from Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the pitch- pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk bandana, and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and Maria's last letter, which he spread out and re-read several times.

Commonplace and formal as the letter was, there was an intangible something in it that made him feel a little nearer the writer than ever before. Therefor, he began his reply:

Dere Miss Maria Klegg:

"I talk mi pen in hand to inform you that our walkin'-papers has at last come, and we start termorrer mornin' for Buzzard Roost to settle jest whose to rool that roost. Our ideas and Mister Jo Johnston's differ on that subjeck. When we git through with him hele no more, though he probably won't be so purty as he is now."

Little Pete's Awful Rebels. 149

He stopped to rest after this prodigious literary effort, and wipe the beaded sweat from his brow. He saw little Pete Skidmore looking at him with troubled face.

"What're you doin' up, Pete? Lay down and go to sleep."

"Say, Corpril, the Orderly said we wuz goin' to fight a whole passel of rebel cavalry, didn't he?"

"Um-hum!" assented Shorty, cudgeling his brain as to what he should next write.

"Them's them awful kind o' rebels, ain't they—the John Morgan kind—that ride big horses that snort fire, and they have long swords, with which they chop men's heads off?"

"A lot o' yellin', gallopin' riff-raff," said Shorty, with the usual contempt of an infantryman for cavalry. "Ain't worth the fodder their bosses eat."

"Ain't they terribler than any other kind o' rebels?" asked Pete, anxiously.

"Naah," said Shorty, sharply. "Go to sleep, Pete, and don't bother me with no more questions. I'm writin' a letter." He proceeded with his literary effort:

"I was gladder than I kin tell you to git yore letter. You do write the best letters of any woman in the whole world."

He looked up, and there was little Pete's face before him.

"What do you do when one o' them wild rebels comes cavorting and tearing toward you, on a big hoss, with a long sword, and yelling like a catamount?" he asked.

"Paste him with a bullet and settle him," said Shorty testily, for he wanted to go on with his letter.

"But s'pose he comes on you when your gun ain't loaded, and his sword is, or you've missed him, as I did that hog?"

"Put on your bayonet and prod his hoss in the breast, and then give him 18 inches o' cold steel. That'll settle him. Go and lay down, Pete, I tell you. Don't disturb me. Don't you see I'm writing?"

Shorty went on with his letter.

"How I wish you wood rite offener. Ide like to get a letter from you every—"

"Say, Corpril," broke in little Pete, "they say that them rebel cavalry kin reach much further with their swords when they're up on a hoss than you kin with your gun and bayonit, especially when you're a little feller like me, and they're quicker'n wildcats, and there's just millions of 'em, and—"

"Who says?" said Shorty savagely. "You little open-mouthed squab, are you lettin' them lyin', gassin, galoots back there fill you up with roorbacks about them triflin', howlin', gallopin', rebel cavalry? Go back there, and tell 'em that if I ketch another man breathin' a word to you about the rebel cavalry I'll come and mash his head as flat as a pancake. Don't you be scared about rebel cavalry. You're in much more danger o' bein' struck by lightnin' than of bein' hit by a rebel on hossback. Go off and go to sleep, now, and don't ask me no more questions."

"Can't I ask you just one?" pleaded Pete.

"Yes, just one."

"If we form a holler square agin cavalry will I be in the holler, or up on the banks?"

For the first time in his life, Shorty restrained the merciless jeer that would come to his lips at any exhibition of weakness by those around him. The thought of Maria softened him and made him more sympathetic. He had promised her to be a second father to little Pete. He saw that the poor boy was being frightened as he had never been before by the malicious fun of the veterans in pouring into his ears stories of the awful character of the rebel cavalry. Shorty sucked the ink off his pen, put his hand soothingly on Pete, and said in a paternally comforting way:

"My boy, don't let them blowhards back there stuff you with sich nonsense about the rebel cavalry. They won't git near enough you to hit you with a sword half a mile long. They're like yaller dogs—their bark's the wust thing about 'em. I'll look out for you. You'll stay right by me, all the time, and you won't git hurt. You go back there to my blankits and crawl into 'em and go to sleep. I'll be there as soon's I finish this letter, Forgit all about the rebel cavalry, and go to sleep. Ter-morrer you'll see every mother's son o' them rebels breakin' their hoss' necks to git out o' range o' our Springfields."

Then Shorty finished his letter:

"Ime doin' my best to be a second father to little Pete. Heze as good a little soul as ever lived, but when I talk another boy to raise it'll be sumwhair else than in the army.

"Yores, till deth."

Just then the silver-voiced bugles in hundreds of camps on mountain- sides, in glens, in the valleys, and on the plains began ringing out sweetly mournful "Taps," and the echoes reverberated from the towering palisades of Lookout to the rocky cliffs of the Pigeon Mountains.

It was the last general "Taps" that mighty army would hear for 100 days of stormy battling.

The cheering ceased, the bonfires burned out. Shorty put his letter in an envelope, directed it, and added it to the heap at the Chaplain's tent.

Then he went back and arranged his things so that he could lay his hands unfailingly on them in the darkness of the morning, straightened little Pete out so that he would lie easier, and crawled in beside him.

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