There was a general giggle, and a chorus of exclamations at such

unpatriotic and unwomanly perfidy. Shorty's appetite fled.

"Maria," thundered Si, "I'll make you pay for this when I git you

alone."

"Yes," continued the incorrigible tease; "and they say the best time to

ketch a widder is while her eyes is wet. Transplantin's best in wet

weather, and the best time to ketch a feller's jest when he's bin

jilted."

Si sprang from the table, as if he would catch Maria and slap her. She

laughingly threatened him with a big fork in her hand. They happened to

look toward Shorty. He had risen from the table, with the sweat pouring

from his burning face. He fumbled in his breast for his silk

handkerchief. As he pulled it out there came with it the piece of

Maria's dress, which Shorty had carefully treasured. It fell to the

floor. Shorty saw it, and forgetful of all else, stooped over, picked it

up, carefully brushed the dust from it, refolded it and put if back in

his pocket. Maria's face changed instantly from laughing raillery, and

she made a quick movement to place herself where she would hide from the

rest what he was doing.

There was a rap at the door and the Sheriff of the County entered.

"Sorry to disturb you at supper," he said. "But there's some hint of

trouble, and I'd like to have you stand by to help me if it comes. The

news has gone all over the country of the haul you brung into the' jail

this afternoon, and they say their friends are gatherin' for a rescue.

So many o' the right kind o' the boys is away in the army that I hardly

know where to look for help. I'm sending word around to all I kin reach.

There's several o' the boys that're home gittin' well o' wounds that'll

be glad to help. I'm sendin' buggies for 'em. They can't walk, but they

kin stand up and shoot. I'd like to have you come down to the jail as

soon's you git through your supper. And, Serg't Klegg, will you take

command? I ain't much on the military, but I'll stay with you and obey

orders."

"All right. Sheriff; we'll be right down," responded Si with alacrity.

"Git together a few of the boys, and we'll stand off the Knights. There

won't be much trouble, I think."

The prospect of a fight transformed Shorty. His shamefacedness vanished

instantly, and he straightened up to his full hight with his eyes

shining.

"I don't think there's need o' disturbin' the other boys. Sheriff," he

said. "I guess me and Si'll be able to stand off any crowd that they're

likely to run up aginst us."

"Don't know about that," said the Sheriff doubtfully. "They've bin

gittin' sassier and sassier lately, and've showed more willingness to

fight. They've put up several very nasty little shindies at one place or

another. Out at Charleston, Ill., they killed the Sheriff and a lot o'

soldiers right in the Courthouse yard in broad daylight. I believe

they've got rebels for officers. We mustn't take no chances."

"Let 'em come on," said Si. "We've run up aginst rebels before. We'll be

down to the jail in a few minutes. Sheriff."

The Sheriff's words had banished the ready laughter from the girls'

lips, and taken away their appetites, but seemed to have sharpened those

of Si and Shorty.

"Here, Maria," called out Si, as he resumed his place at the table with

Shorty, while the girls grouped together and whispered anxiously, "bring

us in some more o' them slapjacks. We may have to be up all night, and

want somethin' that'll stay by us."

"Yes," echoed Shorty, speaking for the first time since he had come into

the house; "I feel as if I'd like to begin all over agin."

"I wish you could begin all over agin," said Maria in a tone very

different from her former one. "I'd like to cook another supper for you.

I wish I could do something to help. Can't I go with you and do

something—load guns, or something? I've read about women doin' somethin'

o' that kind in the Injun fightin'."

"If you could git 'em within range o' your tongue, Maria," said Si

merrily, "you'd scatter, 'em in short order. No; you stay here, and say

your prayers, and go to bed like a good girl, and don't worry about us.

We'll come out all right. It's the other fellers' womenfolks that've

cause to worry. Let them stay up and walk the floor."

As the boys walked down to the jail they saw in the darkness squads of

men moving around in a portentious way. At the jail were the Sheriff,

wearing an anxious look, two or three citizens, and several soldiers,

some with their arms in slings, others on crutches.

"I'm so glad you've come," said the Sheriff. "Things is beginnin' to

look very ugly outside. They've got the whole country stirred up, and

men are coming in on every road. You take command, Sergeant Klegg. I've

bin waitin' for you, so's I could drive over to the station and send a

dispatch to the Governor. The station's about a mile from here, but I'll

be back as soon as my horse'll bring me. I didn't want to send the

dispatch till I was sure there was need of it, for I don't want to bring

soldiers here for nothin'."

The wheels of the Sheriff's buggy rattled over the graveled road, and a

minute later there was a knock at the outside door. Si opened it and saw

there a young man with a smoothly-shaven face, a shock of rumpled hair

and wearing a silk hat, a black frockcoat and seedy vest and pantaloons.

Si at once recognized him as a lawyer of the place.

"Who's in charge here?" he asked.

"I am, for the present," said Si.

"There it is," said he, in a loud voice, that others might hear; "a

military guard over citizens arrested without warrant of law. I have

come, sir, in the name of the people of Indiana, to demand the immediate

release of those men."

"You kin go, sir, and report to them people that it won't be did,"

answered Si firmly.

"But they've been arrested without due process of law. They've been

arrested in violation of the Constitution and laws of the State of

Indiana, which provide—"

"I ain't here to run no debatin' society," Si interrupted, "but to obey

my orders, which is to hold these men safe and secure till otherwise

ordered."

"I give you fair warning that you will save bloodshed by releasing the

men peaceably. We don't want to shed blood, but—"

"We'll take care o' the bloodshed," said Si, nonchalantly. "We're in

that business. We git $13 a month for it."

"Do you defy the sovereign people of Indiana, you military autocrat?"

said the lawyer.

"Look here, mister," said Shorty, striding forward. "Don't you call my

pardner no names, especially none like that. If you want a fight we're

here to accommodate you till you git plum-full of it. But you musn't

call no sich names as that, or I'll knock your head off."

"Whose head'll you knock off?" said a burly man, thrusting himself in

front of the lawyer, with his fist doubled.

"Yours, for example," promptly responded Shorty, sending out his mighty

right against the man's head.

"Don't be a fool, Markham," said the lawyer, catching the man and

pushing him back into the crowd behind. "Now, sir, Sergeant, or Captain,

or Colonel, whatever you may call yourself, for I despise military

titles, and don't pretend to know them, I again demand the release of

those men. You'll be foolish to attempt to resist, for we've men enough

to tear you limb from limb, and jerk down the jail over your heads. Look

out for yourself. You can see that the courtyard is full of men. They

are determined—desperate, for they have groaned under the iron heel of

tyranny."

"O, cheese that stump-speech," said Si, weariedly. "'Taint in our

enlistment papers to have to listen to 'em. You've bin warnin', now I'll

do a little. I'll shoot the first man that attempts to enter this jail

till the Sheriff gits back. If you begin any shootin' we'll begin right

into your crowd, and we'll make you sick. There's some warnin' that

means somethin'."

"Your blood be on your own heads, then, you brass-button despots," said

the lawyer, retiring into the darkness and the crowd. He seemed to give

a signal, for a rocket shot up into the air, followed by wild yells from

the mob. The large wooden stable in the Courthouse yard burst into

flames, and the prisoners inside yelled viciously in response. There was

a fusillade of shots, apparently excited and aimless, for none of them

struck near.

"Don't fire, boys," said Si, walking around among his guards, "until

there is some reason for it. They'll probably try to make a rush and

batter down the jail door. We'll watch for that."

The glare of the burning building showed them preparing for that move. A

gang had torn off the heavy rail from the hitching-post on the outside

of the square, and were going to use it as a battering-ram. Then came

another kind of yell from farther away, and suddenly the mob began

running in wild confusion, while into the glare swept a line of

soldiers, charging with fixed bayonets.

"A train came in while I was at the depot," the Sheriff explained, as he

entered the office. "It had on it a regiment going home on veteran

furlough. I asked the Major in command to come over and help us. He and

his boys was only too glad for a chance to have some fun and stretch

their legs. They came off the cars with a whoop as soon's they knowed

what was wanted. Now, you boys kin go home and git a good night's sleep.

I'll take these prisoners along with the regiment over to the next

County seat, and keep 'em there till things cool down here. I'm awfully

obliged to you."

"Don't mention it. Glad to do a little thing like that for you any

time," responded Si, as he and Shorty shook hands with the Sheriff.

At the next corner, after leaving the Courthouse square, they met Maria

and Martha.

"I just couldn't stay in the house while this was goin' on," Maria

explained. "I had to come out and see. O, I'm so glad it's all over and

you're not hurt."

She caught Shorty's arm with a fervor that made him thrill all over.

CHAPTER XV. OFF FOR THE FRONT SI AND SHORTY TAKE CHARGE OF A SQUAD OF

RECRUITS.

WHEN the boys came to breakfast the next morning, they found Maria with

the hollyhock effulgence of garb of the day before changed to the usual

prim simplicity of her housedress. This meant admiration striking Shorty

still dumber. He was in that state of mind when every change in the

young woman's appearance seemed a marvelous transformation and made her

more captivating than before. He had thought her queenly dazzling in her

highly-colored "go-to-meeting" plumage of the day before. She was now

simply overpowering in her plain, close-fitting calico, that outlined

her superb bust and curves, with her hair combed smoothly back from her

bright, animated face. Shorty devoured her with his eyes—that is, when

she was not looking in his direction. He would rather watch her than eat

his breakfast, but when her glance turned toward him he would drop his

eyes to his plate. This became plain to everybody, even Maria, but did

not prevent her beginning to tease.

"What's the matter with you? Where's your appetite?" asked she. "You're

clean off your feed. You must be in love. Nothin' else'd make a man go

back on these slapjacks that Cousin Marthy made with her own hands, and

she kin beat the County on slapjacks. Mebbe you're thinkin' o' your Bad

Ax girl and her widower. Perk up. He may fall offen a saw-log and git

drowned, and you git her yit. Never kin tell. Life's mighty uncertain,

especially around saw-mills. When I marry a man he's got to give bonds

not to have anything to do, in no way or shape, with saw-mills. I don't

want to be a widder, or take care o' half a man for the rest o' my days.

You've got a chance to git your girl yit. Mebbe she'll git tired o' him

after he's bin run through the mill two or three times, and there's more

o' him in the graveyard than there is walkin' to church with her. Cheer

up."

Shorty tried to disprove the charge as to the subject of his thoughts by

falling to furiously and with such precipitation that he spilt his

coffee, upset the molasses-jug, and then collapsed in dismay at his

clumsiness.

Maria did not go free herself. The other girls had not been blind to

Shorty's condition of mind, and rather suspected that Maria was not

wholly indifferent to him. When she came into the kitchen for another

supply. Cousin Susie, younger sister of Martha, remarked:

"Maria, I've a notion to take your advice, and set my cap for Corpril

Shorty. Do you know, I think he's very good lookin'. He's a little rough

and clumsy, but a girl could take that out o' him. I believe I'll begin

right away. You stay in here and bake and I'll wait on the table."

"Don't be a little goose, Susie," said Maria severely. "You're too young

yit to think about beaux. You hain't got used to long dresses yit. You

go practice on boys in roundabouts awhile. This is a full-grown man and

a soldier. He hain't got no time to waste on schoolgirls."

"Ha, how you talk, Miss Jealousy," responded Susie. "How scared you are

lest I cut you out. I've a great mind to do it, just to show you I kin.

I'd like awfully to have a sweetheart down at the front, just to crow

over the rest o' the girls. Here, you take the turner and let me carry

that plate in."

"I'll do nothin' o' the kind," said Maria, decisively. "You look out for

your cakes there. They're burnin' while you're gossipin'. That's my

brother and his friend, and I hain't got but a short time to be with

'em. I may never see 'em agin, and I want to do all I kin for 'em while

they're with me."

"Too bad about your brother," laughed Susie. "How lovin' and attentive

all at once. I remember how you used to wig him without mercy at school,

and try to make him go off and take me home, instid o' taggin' along

after you, when that big-eyed school teacher that sung tenor'd be makin'

sheep's eyes at you in school, and wantin' to walk home with you in the

evenin'. I remember your slappin' Si for tellin' the folks at home about

the teacher and you takin' long walks at noon out to the honeysuckle

patch. I've a great mind to go in and tell it all to Si right before

that feller. Then your cake'll all be dough. Don't git too uppish with

me, young lady. Gi' me that plate and let me take it in."

The cakes on the griddles burned while Maria watched through the door

what she mentally described as the "arts and manuvers o' that sassy

little piece." She was gratified to see that Shorty's eyes kept glancing

at the door for her own reappearance. She carried in the next plate of

cakes herself, and though they were a little scorched, Shorty ate them

with more zest than any of their predecessors.

Si announced, as he shoved back from the table:

"Well, we've got to go right off. We must ketch that accommodation and

git back to Bean Blossom Crick. I want to say good-by to the folks, and

then strike out for Jeffersonville. I've reported that I'm able for

dooty agin, and there's orders at home for me and Shorty to go to

Jeffersonville and git a gang o' recruits that's bin gethered there, and

bring 'em to the rijimint."

Shorty had been in hopes that Si would dally for a day or so in these

pleasant pastures, but then he reflected that where Annabel was was

likely to be much more attractive to Si than where she was not.

"No need o' my goin' back with you," he ventured to suggest, speaking

for the first time. "I might take the train goin' East, and git things

in shape at Jeffersonville by the time you come."

Then his face grew hot with the thought that everyone saw through his

transparent scheme to get an hour or two more with Maria.

"No," said Si, decisively. "You'll go back with me. Father and mother

and 'Mandy are all anxious to see you, and they'll never forgive me if I

don't bring you back with me. Le's start."

If, at parting. Shorty had mustered up courage enough to look Maria

squarely in the eyes, he might have read something there to encourage

him, but no deeply-smitten man ever can do this. There is where the

"light o' loves" have the great advantage. He could only grip her hand

convulsively for an instant, and then turn and follow Si.

At the Deacon's home Shorty found the same quiet, warm welcome, with too

much tact on the part of anyone except little Sammy Woggles to make any

comment on the circumstances of his disappearance. Sammy was clearly of

the opinion that Si had run down Shorty and brought him back, and this

had the beneficial effect of dampening Sammy's runaway schemes. He was

also incensed at Shorty's perfidy in not sending him the rebel gun, and

thought that his being brought back was righteous retribution.

"Served you right, you black-hearted promise-breaker," he hissed at

Shorty when they found themselves momentarily alone. "I writ you that

letter, and it nearly killed me—brung me down with the measles, and you

never sent me that gun. But I'll foller yer trail till you do."

"Don't be a little fool, Sammy. You stay right here. You've got the best

home in the world here. If you do I'll send you your gun inside of a

month, with some real rebel catridges and a bayonet that's killed a man,

and a catridge-box with a belt that you kin carry your ammunition

in—that is, if you'll write me another letter, all about Maria."

"I won't write you a word about Maria," said the youth, seeing his

advantage, "onless you promise to send me a whole lot o' catridges—a

hatful. Powder and lead costs a heap o' money. And so do caps."

I'll Send You a Catridge and Cap for Every Word You Write About Maria.

213

"You shall have 'em. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send you a

catridge and cap for every word you write about Maria."

"It's a go," said the delighted boy. "I'm goin' to learn someway to

write without bitin' my tongue, an' I'll write you as many words every

day as I want catridges to shoot off, so that I'll have enough for the

next Fourth o' July, and kill all old Pete Walker's snappin' dogs

besides."

The boys were to leave on the midnight train. The bigger part of Si's

leave-taking seemed to be outside of his family, for he quit the house

immediately after supper and did not leave Annabel's side until he had

just barely time to get back home, take leave of his weeping mother and

help store in the spring wagon more than he and Shorty could carry of

the good things she had provided for them.

"What's this?" said Si to Shorty the next day at Jeffersonville, when

they had reported to the Provost-Marshal, and had mustered before them

the squad of recruits that they were to conduct to their regiment. "Have

they bin roundin' up some country school-houses, and enlisted all the

boys that was in the fourth reader and Ray's arithmetic?"

"Seems like it," said Shorty, looking down the line of bright,

beardless, callow faces. "Some o' them don't look as if they'd got as

fur as the fourth reader. Ain't old enough to spell words o' more than

two syllables. What do they want with so many drummer-boys?"

"We aint no drummer-boys," said a bright-faced five-footer, who overhead

the question. "Nary drum for us. We haint got no ear for music. We're

regular soldiers, we are, and don't you forget it."

"But you ain't nigh 18," said Si, looking him over, pleased with the

boy's spirit.

"You bet I'm over 18," answered the boy. "I told the Mustering Officer I

was, and stuck to it in spite of him. There, you can see for yourself

that I am," and he turned up his foot so as to show a large 18 marked on

the sole of his shoe. "There, if that don't make me over 18, I'd like to

know what does," he added triumphantly, to the chorus of laughter from

his companions.

In the entire squad of 65 there were not more than half a dozen bearded

men. The rest were boys, all clearly under their majority, and many

seeming not over 15. There were tall, lathy boys, with tallowy faces;

there were short, stocky boys, with big legs and arms and fat faces as

red as ripe apples, and there were boys neither very fat nor very lean,

but active and sprightly as cats. They were in the majority. Long and

short, fat and lean, they were all bubbling over with animal spirits and

activity, and eager to get where they could see "real war."

"Say, mister," said the irrepressible five-footer, who had first spoken

to Si; "we've bin awful anxious for you to come and take us to our

regiment. We want to begin to be real soldiers."

"Well, my boy," said Si, with as much paternalism as if he had been a

grandfather, "you must begin right now, by actin' like a real soldier.

First, you mustn't call me mister. Mustn't call nobody mister in the

army. My name's Sergeant Klegg. This other man is Corporal Elliott, You

must always call us by those names, When you speak to either of us you

must take the position of a soldier—stand up straight, put your heels

together, turn your toes out, and salute, this way."

"Is this right?" asked the boy, carefully imitating Si.

"Yes, that's purty near right—very good for first attempt. Now, when I

speak to you, you salute and answer me. What is your name?"

"Henry Joslyn, sir."

"Well, Henry, you are now Private Joslyn, of the 200th Injianny

Volunteer Infantry. I can't tell what company you'll belong to till we

git to the rigimint, but I'll try to have you in Co. Q, my company."

"But when are we going to get our guns and knapsacks and things, and

start for the regiment?" persisted the eager boy, and the others joined

in the impatient inquiry.

"You won't git your guns and accourterments till you git to the

rigimint. As soon's I kin go over this roll and identify each one o'

you, I'll see what the orders is for starting."

"There goes some men for the ferry now. Why can't we go with them?"

persisted the boy.

"Private Joslyn," said Si, with some official sternness, "the first

thing a soldier's got to learn is to keep quiet and wait for orders. You

understand?"

"'Pears to me that there's a lot o' first things to learn," grumbled the

boy to the others, "and it's nothin' but wait, wait forever. The army'll

go off and leave us if we don't get down there purty soon."

"Don't worry, my boy, about the army goin' off and leavin' you," said

Shorty in a kindly way. "It'll wait. It kin be depended on for that.

Besides, it's got to wait for me and Sargint Klegg."

"That's so. Didn't think o' that," chorused the boys, to whose eyes the

two veterans seemed as important as Gens. Grant or Thomas.

"That's purty light material for serious bizniss, I'm afeared," said

Shorty to Si, as they stood a little apart for a moment and surveyed the

coltish boys, frisking around in their new blouses and pantaloons, which

fitted about like the traditional shirt on a bean-pole.

"I think they're just splendid," said Si, enthusiastically. "They'll

fill in the holes o' the old rigimint in great shape. They're as tough

as little wildcats; they'll obey orders and go wherever you send 'em,

and four out o' every five o' them kin knock over a crow at a hundred

yards with a squirrel rifle. But, Shorty," he added with a sudden

assumption of paternal dignity, "me and you's got to be fathers to them.

We've got a great responsibility for them. We must do the very best we

kin by 'em."

"That's so," said Shorty, catching at once the fatherly feeling. "I'll

punch the head off en the first sneezer that I ketch tryin' to impose on

'em."

CHAPTER XVI. THE TROUBLESOME BOYS SI AND SHORTY'S RECRUITS ENTER

KENTUCKY.

THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put in

charge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected with

the war. For two years they had been fed on stories and incidents of the

mighty conflict then convulsing the land. Every breath they had drawn

had some taste of battle in it. Wherever they went or were they heard

incessantly of the storm-swept "front"—of terrific battles, perilous

adventures, heroic achievements, death, wounds and marvelous escapes.

The older boys were all at the front, or going there, or coming back

with heroic marks of shot and shell. The one burning aspiration in every

well-constructed boy's heart was to get big enough to crowd past the

recruiting officer, and go where he could see with his own eyes the

thunderous drama. There was concentrated all that fills a healthy boy's

imagination and stirs his blood—something greater than Indian-fighting,

or hunting lions and tigers. They looked on Si and Shorty with little

short of reverence. Here were two men who had captured a rebel flag in a

hand-to-hand fight, both of whom had been left for dead, and both

promoted for gallantry. What higher pinnacle of greatness could any boy

hope to reach?

They began at once seriously imitating the walk and manners of their

heroes. The tall, lank boys modeled themselves on Shorty, and the short,

chubby ones on Si. And there at once rose contention between them as to

which was the greater hero.

"I heard," said Henry Joslyn, "that Corpril Elliott was the first to

reach the rebel flag, he havin' much the longest legs, but jest as he

grabbed it a big rebel knocked him, and then they all piled on to him,

and about had him finished when Serg't Klegg reached there at a charge

bayonets, and he bayoneted everybody in sight, until a sharpshooter in a

tree shot him with an explosive bullet that tore his breast all to

pieces, but he kept right on bayonetin' 'em till he dropped from loss o'

blood. Then they fired a cannon at the sharpshooter and blowed him to

pieces just as you'd blow a chippy to pieces with a bullet from a bear-

gun."

"'Twan't that way at all," said tall, lathy Gid Mackall. "A whole lot of

'em made for the flag together. A charge o' grapeshot come along and

blowed the rest away, but Serg't Klegg and Corpril Elliott kep' right

on. Then Corpril Elliott he lit into the crowd o' rebels and laid a

swath right around him, while Sergint Klegg grabbed the flag. A rebel

Colonel shot him, but they couldn't stop Corpril Elliott till they shot

a brass six-pounder at him."

The boys stood on the banks of the Ohio River and gazed eagerly at the

other side. There was the enemy's country—there the theater in which the

great drama was being enacted. Everything there had a weird fascination

for them, as a part of, or accessory to, the stupendous play. It was

like peeping under the circus tent, when they were smaller, and catching

glimpses of the flying horses' feet.

And the questions they asked. Si had in a manner repelled them by his

curt treatment of Harry Joslyn, and his preoccupied air as he went back

and forth getting his orders and making preparations for starting. But

Shorty was in an affable mood, and by pleasantly answering a few of

their inquiries brought the whole fire of their questioning upon him.

"Are any o' them men you see over there guerrillas?" they asked.

"Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they're

peaceable citizens, though."

"How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"

"By the way they shoot at you. The peaceable citizens don't shoot—at

least, in day time and out in the open. They lay for you with sole-

leather pies, and chuck-a-luck boards and 40-rod whisky, and aid. and

abet the Southern Confedrisy that way. They get away with more Union

soldiers than the guerrillas do. But you can never tell what an able-

bodied man in Kentucky'll do. He may lay for you all day with wildcat

whisky, at $5 a canteenful, to git money to buy ammunition to shoot at

you at night. He's surer o' gittin' you with a canteen o' never-miss

whisky, but there's more healthy excitement about shootin' at you from

behind a bank. And his pies is deadlier'n his apple-jack. A man kin git

over an apple-jack drunk, but Kentucky pies 's wuss'n nux vomica on

fish."

"Mustn't we eat none o' their pies?" asked the boys, with longing

remembrance of the fragrant products of their mothers' ovens.

"Nary a pie. If I ketch a boy eatin' a pie after we cross the river I'll

buck-and-gag him. Stick to plain hardtack and pork. You'll git to like

it better'n cake by and by. I eat it right along in preference to the

finest cake ever baked."

Shorty did not think it necessary to mention that this preference was

somewhat compulsory.

"Why don't you hunt down the guerrillas and kill 'em off and be done

with 'em?"

"You can't, very well. You see, guerrilain' is peculiar. There's

somethin' in the air and water down in Kentucky and Tennessee that

brings it on a man. You'll see a plain farmer man, jest like them around

your home, and he'll be all right, goin' about his place plowin' and

grubbin' sprouts and tendin' to his stock, and tellin' you all the time

how much he loves the Union and how he and his folks always bin for the

Union. Next thing you know he'll be out behind a cedar bush with a

shotgun loaded with slugs, waitin' to make a lead mine o' some feller

wearin' blue clothes. You see him before he does you, and he'll swear

that he was out after the crows that's bin pullin' up his corn. He'll

take' the oath of allegiance like it was a dram of old apple-jack, and

tears'll come into his eyes at the sight o' the Old Flag, which he and

his'n has always loved. He'll go ahead plowin' and grubbin' sprouts and

tendin' his cattle till the fit comes on him agin to go gunnin' for

bluecoats, and off he is, to go through the whole performance agin. You

kin never tell how long his loosid interval will last, nor when the

fit's comin' on him. Mebbe the changes o' the moon's somethin' to do

with it. Mebbe it's somethin' that they eat, like what the cattle eat

out West that makes 'em go crazy."

"Will the guerrillas begin shootin' at us as soon's we cross the river?"

"Can't tell. Guerrillas's like the nose-bleed—likely to come on you at

any time. They're jest where you find 'em—that's when they're jumpin'

you.. When they aint jumpin' you, they're lawabiding Union citizens,

entitled to the protection o' the laws and to draw rations from the

Commissary. To make no mistake, you want to play every man in citizen's

clothes south of the Ohio River for a rebel. And when you don't see him,

you want to be surer than ever, for then he's layin' for you."

Si came up at this moment with orders for them to pick up and go down to

the ferry, and the lively hustle shut off Shorty's stream of information

for the time being. The boys swarmed on to the bow of the ferry-boat,

where they could scrutinize and devour with eager eyes the fateful shore

of Kentucky.

"Don't look so very different from the Indiana side," said Harry Joslyn,

as they neared the wharf. "Same kind o' wharf-boats and same kind o' men

on 'em."

"That's because we've taken 'em and have our own men there," replied Gid

Mackall. "It'll all be different when we git ashore and further into the

State."

"Wasn't expecting nothing else," said Albert Grimes. "I've been watchin'

the Sargint and Corpril, and they're acting just as if it was every day

bizniss. I'm not going to expect anything till I see them lookin'

serious."

They landed and walked to the depot through the streets of Louisville,

which were also disappointingly like those they had seen elsewhere, with

the stores open and people going about their business, as if no shadow

of war brooded over the land. There were some more soldiers on the

streets, and a considerable portion of the vehicles were army wagons,

but this was all.

"When'll we see some rebels?" the boys asked.

"Don't be impatient," said a soldier on the sidewalk; "you'll see 'em

soon enough, and more'n you want to. You'll have to go a little further,

but you'll find the woods full of 'em. You'll be wishin' you was back

home in your little trundle-beds, where they ought've kept you."

"Shut up, you coffee-boiler," shouted Shorty, striding toward him.

"These boys 's goin' to the front, where you ought to be, and I won't

have you sayin' a word to discourage 'em."

"Too bad about discouraging 'em," laughed another, who had a juster

appreciation of the situation. "You couldn't discourage that drove of

kids with a hickory club."

After the train left Louisville it passed between two strong forts

bristling with heavy guns. Here was a reality of war, and the boys' tide

of questions became a torrent that for once overslaughed Shorty's fine

talent for fiction and misinformation.

"How many battles had been fought there?"

"How many Union soldiers had been killed?"

"How many rebels?"

"Where were they buried?"

"How big a ball did the guns shoot?"

"How far would it carry?"

"How many men would it kill if they were put one behind another?"

"How near would the guns come to hitting a man a mile off?"

"Could the gunner knock a man's head off, or one of his legs, just as he

pleased?"

"Were the guns rifled or smooth-bore?"

"How much powder did it take to load them?"

"How hard did they kick when they were fired?"

"Did they have flint-locks or caps?"

"Did they ever fire chain-shot, which would cut down trees and sweep

away companies of men?"

"If all the rest of the men were killed wouldn't the powder-monkey get a

chance to fire the gun?"

"Look here, boys," gasped Shorty, when he got a chance to answer, "I'd

like to answer your questions and fill you so plumb full o' information

that your hides'd crack to hold it. But I aint no complete history o'

the war with heavy artillery tactics bound up in one volume. All I know

is that the worst dose them forts ever give was to the fellers that had

to build 'em. After you've dug and shoveled and wheeled on one of 'em

for about a month you'll hate the very sight of 'em and never ask no

questions about 'em. All you'll want'll be to find and kill the feller

that invented them brick-red eruptions on the face o' the earth."

This was a prosaic side of the war that had not occurred to the boys.

'here, You Young Brats, What Are You up to 225

As the train ran out into the country there were plentiful signs of war

to rivet the attention of the youngsters—hospitals, with the emaciated

patients strolling feebly about; corrals of mules and horses, the waste

and wreckage where camps had been, and bridges which had been burned and

rebuilt.

"But we haint seen no guerrillas yit," said Harry Joslyn and Gid

Mackall, whose minds seemed more fascinated with that species of an

enemy than any other, and they apparently voiced the minds of the rest.

"When're we likely to see some guerrillas?"

"O, the guerrillas are layin' purty low now, betwixt here and

Nashville," Si carelessly explained. "After we pass Nashville you kin

begin to look out for 'em."

"Why," Gid Mackall complained to the rest of them, "Corpril Elliott said

that we could begin to look out for guerrillas jest as soon's we crossed

the Ohio—that the whole o' Kentucky was full of 'em. I believe Corpril

Elliott knows more about his business than Sargint Klegg. Sargint Klegg

seems careless like. I see lots o' fellers along the road in butternut

clothes that seemed savage and sneaky like. They looked at us in a way

that made me certain they wuz spying us, and had their guns hid away

somewhere, ready to jump us whenever there wuz a good chanst."

"So did I," chorused the others.

The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while,

taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to do

went forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans,

and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had just

successfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering to

himself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness,

when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with the

information:

"Here, you fellers, you want to git out there and 'tend to them kids o'

your'n. They've got a couple o' citizens down there in the brush and I

believe are goin' to hang 'em."

Si and Shorty ran down in the direction indicated. They found the boys,

stern-eyed and resolute, surrounding two weak-eyed, trembling

"crackers," who had apparently come to the train with baskets of

leathery-crusted dried-apple pies for sale. The men were specimens of

the weak-minded, weak-bodied, lank-haired "po' white trash," but the

boys had sized them up on sight as dangerous spies and guerrillas, had

laid hands on them and dragged them down into the brush, where Gid

Mackall and Harry Joslyn were doing a fair reproduction of Williams,

Paulding and Van Wert searching Maj. Andre's clothes for incriminating

documents. They had the prisoners' hands tied behind them and their

ankles bound. So far they had discovered a clumsy brass-barreled pistol

and an ugly-looking spring dirk, which were sufficient to confirm the

dangerous character of the men. Two of the boys had secured ropes from

the train, which they were trying to fashion into hangman's nooses. Gid

and Harry finished a painstaking examination of the men's ragged jeans

vests, with a look of disappointment at finding nothing more inculpating

that some fishhooks, chunks of twist tobacco and cob-pipes.

"They must have 'em in their boots, boys. Pull 'em off," said Harry.

"There's where spies usually carry their most important papers."

"Here, you young brats, what are you up to?" demanded Si, striding in

among them.

"Why, Sargint," said Harry Joslyn, speaking as if confident of being

engaged in a praisworthy work, which should receive the commendation of

his superiors, "these're two spies and guerrillas that we ketched right

in the act, and we're searchin' 'em for evidence to hang 'em."

"Spies nothin'!" said Si. "Why, them fellers hain't brains enough to

tell a battery from a regiment, nor pluck enough to take a settin' hen

offen her nest. Let them go at once."

"Why, Corpril Elliott told us that every man in Kentucky, particularly

them what sold pies, wuz dangerous, and liable to go guerrillying at any

minute," said Harry in an aggrieved tone. "These fellers seemed to be

sneakin' down to find that we hadn't no guns and then jump us."

"Well, what I said wuz true on jineral principles," laughed Shorty. "But

there's occasionally exceptions to even what I tell you. These fellers

are as harmless as garter-snakes. Why didn't you come and speak to us?"

"Why, you shoved our car out there into the brush and went off and left

us. We thought we had to look out for ourselves," explained Harry.

"Can't we hang 'em, anyway?" he added in an appealing tone, and the rest

of the boys looked wistfully at Si for permission to proceed.

"No, you can't, I tell you. Turn 'em loose this minute, and give 'em

back their things, and go yourselves to your car. We're goin' to start

now. Here," he continued to the two men, "is a dollar. Take your pies

and dig out. Don't attempt to sell any o' them pies to these boys, or

I'll hang you myself, and there won't be no foolishness about it. Git

back to your car, boys."

"There won't be no hangin', and we won't git none o' the pies,"

complained the boys among themselves. "Sargint Klegg's gittin'

overbearin'. What'd he interfere for? Them fellers was guerrillas, as

sure as you're born, just as Corpril Elliott described 'em before we

crossed the river."

CHAPTER XVII. THE FRIGHTENED SURGEON SI AND SHORTY HAVE A TIME WITH

THEIR WILD, YOUNG SQUAD.

MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in

Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody

ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.

"How in the world'd we ever git clean through the State without the

least bit o' trouble?" asked Harry Joslyn, as they stood together on the

platform awaiting the return of Si and Shorty, who had gone to see about

their breakfast. "It was fight from the word go with the other men from

the minute they struck Kentucky."

"Probably it was Corpril Elliott's good management," suggested Gid

Mackall, whose hero-worship of Shorty grew apace. "I tell you there aint

a trick o' soldierin' that he aint up to."

"Corpril Elliott's?" sneered Harry Joslyn. "You're just stuck on Corpril

Elliott. If it was anybody's good management it was Sargint Klegg's. I

tell you, he's the boss. He got shot through the breast, while Corpril

Elliott only got a crack over the head. That settles it as to who's the

best soldier. I'm kind o' sorry that we didn't have no trouble. Mebbe

the folks at home'll git the idea that we skulked and dodged."

"That's so," accorded the others, with a troubled look.

"But we are now in Tennessee," chirped in Gid Mackall hopefully. "That's

ever so much worse'n Kentucky. We must come to rebels purty soon now.

They won't let so many reinforcements git to Gen. Thomas if they kin

help it." And Gid looked around on his companions, as if he thought

their arrival would turn the scale and settle the fate of the

Confederacy. "They'll probably jump us just as soon as we leave town.

Them big forts on the hills mebbe keeps them outside now, but they're

layin' for us just beyond. Wonder if we'll git our guns here? Mebbe

that's what the Sargint and Corpril's gone for."

"They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope

it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast

for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice

Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile."

"'Tention!" commanded Si. "Fall in single rank 'cordin' to your size.

Tall boys on the right, short ones on the left, medium in the center.

Gid Mackall, you're the tallest. You can go there to the corner o' the

platform and let the others form on you."

Si stepped back into the shed to look after some matters.

Harry Joslyn whipped around and took his stand on the right of Gid

Mackall.

"Here," protested Gid; "Sargint Klegg told me to stand on the right.

You're smaller'n me. Git on the other side."

"I won't do it," answered Harry. "I've always stood ahead o' you in

school, ever since we were in the primer class, and I aint goin' to

stand behind you in the army. You needn't try to gouge me out o' my

rights because you're half-a-head taller. I'm two months older'n you,

and I can throw you in a wrastle every time."

"I tell you," said Gid, giving Harry an angry shove toward the left,

"that this is my place, and I'm goin' to stand here. The Sargint told me

to. Go down where you belong, you little rat."

The hot-headed Harry mixed up with him immediately, school-boy fashion.

Shorty rushed up and separated the two, giving Harry a sharp shake.

"Stop that, and go down to your place in the center," said he.

"Yes; you side with him," whimpered Harry, "because he praises you and

says you're a better soldier'n Sargint Klegg. I'm goin' to tell Sargint

Klegg that."

"Here," said Si, sternly, as he came back again. "What's all this row?

Why don't you boys fall in 'cordin' to size, as I told you?"

"Sargint," protested Harry, "Gid Mackall wants to stand at the head o'

the class. I'm older'n him, I can spell him down, and I can throw him

in—"

Si interrupted the appeal by taking Harry by the ear and marching him to

his place.

"Look here," he said, "when you git an order from anyone, don't give 'em

no back talk. That's the first thing you've got to learn, and the

earlier you learn it the less trouble you'll have. If you don't like it,

take it out in swearin' under your breath, but obey."

"But, Sargint, he said that Corpril Elliott was a better soldier'n"

"Silence in ranks," said Si, giving him a shake. "Right dress. Come out

in the center. Mackall, stand up straight there. Take that hump out o'

your shoulders. Put your heels together, all of you. Turn your toes out.

Put your little fingers down to the seams o' your pantaloons. Draw your

stomachs in. Throw your chests out. Hold your heads up. Keep your faces

straight to the front, and cast your eyes to the right until you kin see

the buttons on the breast o' the third man to your right. Come forward

until they're in line.

"Goodness," moaned some of the boys, as they were trying to obey what

seemed a' hopeless mass of directions, "do we have to do this every

mornin' before we kin have breakfast? We'll starve to death before we

git anything to eat. No use tellin' us to draw our stomachs in. They're

clean in to our backbones now."

"Mustn't talk in ranks, boys," Shorty kindly admonished. "It's strictly

agin' regulations. Straighten up, there, like soldiers, all o' you, and

git into a line. Looks like a ram's horn now. If the rebels'd shoot down

that line they wouldn't hit one o' you."

Jim Humphries, one of the medium-sized boys, suddenly turned as white as

a sheet and fell on the planks. One after another of those around him

did the same, until a half-dozen were lying there in a heap.

"What in the world's the matter?" asked Si, rushing up to them in

dismay.

"They're pizened, that's what they are," shouted Harry Joslyn. "That

guerrilla goin' over there pizened 'em. I saw him a-givin' 'em

something. He's tryin' to git away. Le's ketch him."

At the word the boys made a rush for the man who was quietly walking

off. As they ran they threw stones, which went with astonishing

precision and force. One of them struck the man on the head and felled

him. Then the boys jumped on him and began pounding and kicking him. Si

and Shorty came up, pushed off the boys and pulled the man to his feet.

He was terrified at the onset which had been made upon him, and could

not understand its reason.

"What've I done?" he gasped. "What're all yo'uns weltin' me for? I haint

no rebel. I've done tuk the oath of allegiance long ago."

"Now there'll be a hangin' sure," said Harry, in eager expectancy.

"What'd you do to them boys back there?" demanded Si.

"Didn't do nothin' to 'em. Sw'ar to God A'mighty I didn't."

"That telegraph pole will be just the thing to hang him on," suggested

Harry to Gid. "We could put him on a flat car and push the car out from

under him. I'll look around for a rope, Gid, and you git ready to climb

the pole."

"He did do something to 'em, Sargint," said Gid Mackall. "I seen him

givin' 'em something."

"'Twas only a little mite o' terbacker," the man explained. "They'uns

said they'uns was mouty hongry, and wanted t' know if I'd anything t'

eat. I hadn't nothing, but I done had a little terbacker, which I tole

'em'd take away the hongry feelin', and I gin each o' they'uns a lettle

chaw."

"I shouldn't wonder but he's tellin' the truth," Shorty whispered to Si.

"Le's take him back there and see."

Coming back to the platform they found the boys there recovering but

still very weak and pale. They confirmed the story about the tobacco.

Shorty examined the rest of the tobacco in the man's possession with the

practiced taste of a connoisseur, found it strong black plug, just the

thing to upset a green boy who took it on an empty stomach, cut off a

liberal chew for himself and dismissed the man with a kick.

"Now, le's form agin and march to breakfast. Great Scott, how hungry I

am," said Si. "'Tention. Fall in 'cordin' to size. Single rank."

"What's size got to do with gittin' breakfast?" complained Harry Joslyn,

who had another grievance, now that he had again been disappointed in

hanging a guerrilla. "Biggest boys'll git there first and get the most

to eat. The rest of us need just as much as they do."

"Silence in the ranks," commanded Shorty, snappishly. "Don't fool

around. Git into your place and stay there. We want breakfast some time

today."

Shorty lined up the boys in a hurry and Si commanded.

"Right dress! Come out a little there on the left! Steady! Without

doublin', right face!"

A squad of Provost-Guards came up at a double-quick, deployed,

surrounded the squad and began bunching the boys together rather

roughly, using the butts of their muskets.

"What does this mean?" Si asked angrily of the Lieutenant in command.

"It means that you and your precious gang have to go down to Provo'

Headquarters at once," answered the Lieutenant. "And no words about it.

Forward, march, now."

"But you've got no business to interfere with me," protested Si. "I've

got my orders to take this squad o' recruits to my regiment, and I'm

doin' it. I'm goin' to put 'em on the cars as soon's I kin git breakfast

for 'em, and start for Chattanoogy."

"Well, why didn't you get breakfast for them and put them on the cars

peaceably and quietly, without letting them riot around and kill

citizens and do all manner of devilment. You have a fine account to

settle."

"But they haint killed no citizen. They haint bin riotin' around, and I

ain't a-goin' with you. You've no right, I tell you, to interfere with

me."

"Well, you just will go with me, and no more chinning."

A Major, attracted by the altercation, rode up and asked what was the

matter.

"Word came to Headquarters," explained the Lieutenant, "that a squad of

recruits were rioting, and had killed a citizen, and I was sent down

here on the run to stop it and arrest the men. This Sergeant, who seems

to be in command, refuses to go with me."

"I tell you, Major," said Si, who recognized the officer as belonging to

his brigade, "there was nobody killed, or even badly hurt. These little

roosters got up a school-yard scrap all about a mistake; it was all over

in a minute. There's the man they say was killed, settin' over there on

that pile o' lumber smokin' his pipe."

"You're Si Klegg, aren't you, of the 200th Ind.?" asked the Major.

"Yes, Major," answered Si, saluting. "And you're Maj. Tomlinson, of the

1st Oshkosh. This is my pardner. Shorty."

"Glad to see you with Sergeant's stripes on," said the Major, shaking

hands with him. "I congratulate you on your promotion. You deserved it,

I know."

"So did Shorty," added Si, determined that his partner should not lack

full measure of recognition.

"Yes, I congratulate Shorty, too. Lieutenant, I know these men, and they

are all right. There has been a mistake. You can take your men back to

Headquarters."

"'Tention," commanded the Lieutenant. "Get into line! Right dress!

Front! Right face! Forward, file left—march!"

"'Tention," commanded Si. "Fall in in single ranks, 'cordin' to size. Be

mighty spry about it. Right dress! Count off in whole numbers."

Another Provost squad came double-quicking up, followed by some

ambulances. Again the boys were hurriedly bunched up. The Provost squad,

however, did not seem to want to come to as close quarters as the other

had. They held back noticeably.

"Now, what in thunder does this mean?" asked Si with angry impatience.

"What's up now?"

"Sergeant, are you in command of this squad?" asked a brisk little man

with the green stripes of a Surgeon, who got out of one of the

ambulances.

"Yes, I am," said Si, saluting as stiffly as he dared. "What's the

matter?"

"Well, get those men of yours that are down into the ambulances as

quickly as you can, and form those that are able to walk close behind.

Be on the jump, because the consequences of your staying here may be

serious to the army. How are you feeling yourself? Got any fever? Let me

see your tongue."

"What in the world's the matter with you?" asked Si in bewilderment.

"Come, don't waste any time asking questions," answered the nervous

little Surgeon. "There's more troops coming right along, and we mustn't

take any chances of their catching it."

"Ketch what? Great grief, ketch what?" groaned Si. "They've already

ketched everything in this mortal world that was ketchable. Now what are

they goin' to ketch?"

"Why, the smallpox, you dumby," said the Surgeon irritably. "Don't you

know that we are terribly afraid of a visitation of smallpox to the

army? They've been having it very bad in some places up North, and we've

been watching every squad of recruits from up there like hawks. A man

came down to Hospital Headquarters just now and reported that a dozen of

your boys had dropped right on the platform. He said that he knew you,

and you came from a place in Indiana that's being swept by the

smallpox."

Smallpox, Your Granny, Said si 237

"Smallpox, your granny," said Si wrathfully. "There haint bin no

smallpox in our neighborhood since the battle o' Tippecanoe. The only

man there who ever had it fit in the battle under Gen. Harrison. He had

it when he was a child, and was so old that the pockmarks on him wuz

wore so smooth you could scarcely see 'em. Our neighborhood's so healthy

you can't even have a square case o' measles. Gosh darn it," Si

exploded, "what glandered fool was it that couldn't tell 'backer-sick

from smallpox? What locoed calves have you runnin' up to your

Headquarters bawlin' reports?"

"Sir," said the Surgeon stiffly, "you forget that you are speaking to

your superior officer."

"Excuse me. Doctor," said Si, recovering himself and saluting. "I'm very

hungry, and worried to death with these frisky kids that I'm trying to

git to my regiment. The only trouble is that some of the trundle-bed

graduates took their first chaw o' terbacker this mornin' on empty

stomachs and it keeled 'em over. Come here and look at 'em yourself.

You'll see it in a minute."

"Certainly. I see it very plainly," said the Surgeon, after looking them

over. "Very absurd to start such a report, but we are quite nervous on

the subject of smallpox getting down to the army.

"Take your men in and give them their breakfast, Sergeant, and they'll

be all right.

"That's what I've bin tryin' to do for the last two hours," said Si, as

he saluted the Surgeon, departing with his ambulances and men.

"'Tention. Confound you, fall in in single rank, 'cordin' to size, and

do it in short meter, before anything else happens. Right dress! Front!

Without doublin', right face! Great Scott, what's the matter with you

roosters? Don't you know your right hands from your lefts? Turn around

there, you moon-eyed goshngs! Forward—file right—march!"

"Here, Sergeant," said a large man with three chevrons on his arm. "I

want to halt your men till I look 'em over. Somebody's gone through a

sutler's car over there on the other track and I think it was your

crowd. I want to find out."

"Halt nothin'," said Si, brushing him out of the way. "I'm goin' to git

these youngsters their breakfast before there's a tornado or an

earthquake. Go 'way, if you know what's good for you."

CHAPTER XVIII. NO PEACE FOR SI AND SHORTY THE YOUNGSTERS KEEP THEM BUSY

WHILE THE TRAIN MOVES SOUTH.

THE long fast had sharpened the zest the boys had for their first

"soldier-breakfast." Until they got down to "real soldier-living" they

could not feel that they were actually in the service. To have this

formal initiation in the historic city of Nashville, far in the interior

of the Southern Confederacy, was an exhiliarating event. The coarse fare

became viands of rare appetency.

"Gracious, how good these beans taste," murmured Harry Joslyn, calling

for a second plateful; "never knowed beans to taste so good before.

Wonder how they cook 'em? We'll have to learn how, Gid, so's to cook 'em

for ourselves, and when we git back home won't we astonish our mothers

and sisters?"

"And sich coffee," echoed Gid. "I'll never drink cream in my coffee

agin. I hadn't no idee cream spiled coffee so. Why, this coffee's the

best stuff I ever drunk. Beats maple sap, or cider through a straw, all

holler. That's good enough for boys. This 's what men and soldiers

drink."

"You know those old gods and goddesses," put in Montmorency Scruggs, a

pale, studious boy, for shortness called "Monty," and who had a great

likeness for ancient history and expected to be a lawyer, "drunk what

they called nectar. Maybe it was something like this."

"But we haven't had any hardtack yet," complained Albert Russell, a

youth somewhat finicky as to dress, and who had ambitions of becoming a

doctor. "They've only given us baker's bread, same as we got on the

other side of the river, only better-tasting. Why don't they give us

real soldier bread? I've heard Uncle Bob laugh at the 'soft-bread

snoozers,' who never got near enough the front to know the taste of

hardtack."

"Well, I'm going to eat all I can of it while I can get it," said little

Pete Skidmore, the youngest and smallest of the lot, who had only passed

the Mustering Officer by exhibiting such a vehement desire to enter the

service as to make up for his probable lack of years and quite evident

lack of inches. "I've heard Uncle Will say that he was always mighty

glad to get back where he could get soft bread for a change, after he'd

worn his grinders down to the quick chawing hardtack. It tastes awful

good, anyway."

"The Government must pay big wages to the men it hires to do its

cooking," philosophized Harry Joslyn, "same as it does to its lawyers

and Congressmen and Generals. No common men could cook grub that way.

Mebbe it took the cooks away from the Astor House and Delmonico's."

"The boys are certainly making up for lost time," complacently remarked

Shorty, as, having taken off the edge of his own hunger with a plateful

of pork-and-beans and a half loaf of bread, he stopped for a moment to

survey the havoc that his young charges, ranged at a long, rough

counter, were making in the Commissary stores. "They're eatin' as if

this was the last square meal they expected to git till the rebellion's

put down."

"Yes," laughed Si, emptying his second cup of coffee, "I used to think

that we had appetites that'd browse a five-acre lot off clean every

meal, but these kids kin distance us. If they live off the country its

bones 'll be picked mighty white when they pass. That lean, lank Gid

Mackall seems to be as holler as a sassidge-skin. Even that wouldn't

give room for all that he's stowin' away."

"Harry Joslyn 's runnin' nose-and-nose with him. There ain't the width

o' their forelocks difference. Harry's yelled for more beans at the same

second that Gid has. In fact, not one of 'em has lagged. They're a great

gang, I tell you, but I wouldn't want to board any one of 'em for six

bits a week."

Maj. Oglesvie came up.

"Serg't Klegg," said he, "the Quartermaster says that he's got a train

load of ammunition to send forward, but he's scarce of guards. I thought

of your squad. Don't you think you could take charge of it? I don't

imagine there is much need of a guard, for things have been pretty quiet

down the road for some weeks. Still, it isn't right to send off so

important a train without any protection."

"Only be too glad of the dooty, sir," answered Si, saluting. "It'll give

the boys something to think of besides hanging guerrillas. Besides,

they're just crazy to git hold o' guns. Where kin I git muskets for

'em?"

"March them right over to that shed there," said the Major, "and the

Quartermaster will issue them muskets and equipments, which you can turn

over again when you reach Chattanooga. Good-by. I hope you'll have a

pleasant trip. Remember me to the boys of the old brigade and tell them

I'll be with them before they start out for Atlanta."

"Purty slouchy bizniss that, givin' these kids guns before they've had

any drill at all—don't know even the facin's, let alone the manual of

arms," remarked Shorty doubtfully, as they marched over to the shed.

"They'll be shooting holes through each others' heads and the tops o'

the cars, and'll waste more ammynition than a six-mule team kin haul.

They'll make a regler Fourth o' July from here to Chattynoogy."

"Don't be worried about them boys," Si reassured him. "Every one of 'em

is used to handlin' guns. Then, we kin keep the catridges ourselves and

not issue any till they're needed, which they mayn't be."

The boys were in a buzz of delight at getting the guns they had so

longed for, and Si's first duty was to end an exuberant bayonet fencing

match between Gid and Harry which was imitated all along the line.

"Stop that," he called. "Put your minds to learnin' to load and shoot

first. It'll be some time before you git a chance to prod a rebel with a

bayonet. Rebels are as wild as crows. You'll be lucky to git as close to

'em as the other side of a 40-acre field."

"But s'posin' a rebel runs at you with his bayonet," expostulated Harry

Joslyn, "oughtn't you to know how to ward him off and settle him?"

"The best way's to settle him jest as he comes over the hill, half-a-

mile away, with an ounce o' cold lead put where he lives. That'll take

the pint offen his bayonet mighty certainly."

Si and Shorty showed the boys how to put on the belts carrying the cap-

and cartridge-boxes, and gave them a little dumb-show instruction in

loading and firing, ending with exhibiting to them a cartridge, and the

method of tearing it with the teeth and putting it in the gun.

"Now give us some catridges," clamored the boys, "and let us do some

real shooting."

"No," said Si; "we'll keep the catridges ourselves, and issue them to

you when the enemy comes in sight."

"Nice time to give out catridges then," grumbled Harry Joslyn. "When we

see the rebels we want to begin shootin' instid o' botherin' you with

questions. You wouldn't kill many coons if you had to run back to the

house for your powder and lead after you saw the coon before you could

shoot him."

"Well, you can't have no catridges now," said Si decisively. "We're not

likely to see any coons before we git to Murfreesboro. Then we'll see

how things look further down the road. Take off your bayonets, all o'

you, and pile into them rear cars there. Stow yourselves around and be

as comfortable as you kin."

The boys preferred the tops of the cars to the inside, and scattered

themselves along the length of the train to view the war-worn country of

which they had heard so much from their relatives who had campaigned

there. Si settled himself down in the car to read the morning papers

which he had gotten in Nashville, and Shorty, producing a pack of new

cards, began a studious practice, with reference to future operations in

Chattanooga.

The train was slowing down for the bridge near Lavergne, when there came

a single shot, followed by a splutter of them and loud yells.

There Was a Chorus of Yells, and then Another Volley. 247

Exceedingly startled, Si and Shorty sprang up, seized their guns,

bounded to the door and looked out. They could see nothing to justify

the alarm. There was not a rebel, mounted or unmounted, in sight. In the

road below were two or three army teams dragging their slow way along,

with their drivers yelling and laughing at a negro, whose mule was

careering wildly across the fenceless field. The negro had been

apparently jogging along, with a collection of plunder he had picked up

in an abandoned camp strung upon his mule, when the latter had become

alarmed at the firing and scattered his burden in every direction. The

rider was succeeding in holding on by clinging desperately to the mule's

neck.

Si set his gun down and clambered up the side of the car.

"What's all that shootin' about?" he demanded of Harry Joslyn.

"I didn't mean it, sir," Harry explained. "I was just aiming my gun at

things I see along the road—just trying the sights like. A turkey-

buzzard lighted on a stump out there, and I guess I must have forgot

myself and cocked my gun, for it went off. Then Gid, seeing me miss,

tried to show he was a better shot, and he banged away and missed, too,

and then the other boys, they had to try their hands, and they belted

away, one after another, and they all missed. I guess we didn't count as

we ougther've done on the goin' forward o' the train, because we all

struck much nearer than we expected to that nigger on a mule, and scared

his mule nigh out o' his skin. We really didn't intend no harm."

"Where did you git catridges?" demanded Si.

"Why, that box that Alf Russell got was half full. He tried to keep 'em

all hisself, and intended to shoot 'em off, one by one, to make the rest

of us envious. Alf always was a pig in school, and never would divide

his apples or doughnuts with the other boys. But we see them almost as

quick as he did, an' Gid and me set down on him suddently, as he was

lying on the roof, and took away all his catridges, and give 'em around

to the rest o' the boys, one a-piece."

"Are they all gone now?"

"Yes, sir; every one shot away," answered Harry regretfully.

Si looked through several of the boxes and at some of the guns to assure

himself of this. He gave those near him a lecture on their offense, and

then climbed down into the car and resumed his paper, while Shorty was

soon immersed again in the abstruse study of the relation of the cross-

barred designs on the back of the cards to the numbers and suits of

their faces.

They had passed Lavergne, and were approaching Stewart's Creek, when

another startling rattle of musketry broke out, this time from the

forepart of the train.

"Now, great Scott, what's up?" said Si angrily, as he quickly surveyed

the surrounding country. He saw that they were not attacked, and then

clambered to the top of the car, where he noticed little wreaths of

powder-smoke lingering around the squad in which were Jim Humphreys,

little Pete Skidmore and Wes. Brown.

"What're you young whelps shootin' for?" demanded Si. They were all so

abashed at his sternness that they could not find their tongues for

reply, until little Pete piped up:

"Why we've bin talkin' to the train men, and they said they wuz shot at

wunst, about a year ago, from that swamp back there, and we got some

catridges from them, and we thought we saw something moving in there,

though Jim Humphreys said it wuz only burned stumps that we took for

men, and them other boys back there had bin shootin' off their gunn and

tryin' 'em, and we thought we could too—"

"You little brats," said Si; "didn't you hear my orders about firin'

before we started? If another boy shoots without my orders I'll tie him

up by the thumbs! Got any more catridges? Give me every one of 'em."

The boys all protested that every cartridge was gone. Si assured himself

of this by examination, savagely scored the train men for giving them

ammunition and threatened trouble if any more was, and having relieved

his mind returned to his paper in the caboose-car.

The train ran on to a switch where there was another carrying a regiment

going home on veteran furlough. Si and Shorty knew some of the men, and

in the pleasure of meeting them and in hearing all the news from the

front forgot that their boys were mingling with the others and being

filled full of the preposterous stories with which veterans delight to

stuff new recruits. Finally the whistles gave notice that the trains

would move. Si got his boys back on the cars, and renewing his caution

about taking care of themselves, holding on tightly and looking out for

overhanging branches, returned with Shorty to their car and their

occupations.

"We're comin' to Stewart's Crick, Shorty," said Si, looking up from his

paper. "Recollect that hill ovyr there? That's where they had that

battery that the Colonel thought we wuz goin' to git. Great Scott, the

mud and briars in that old field!" "Yes," said Shorty, negligently, with

his eyes fixed on the backs of the cards. "But that's ancient history.

Say, I've got these marks down fine at last. They're just as plain as A,

B, C. You see, when that corner o' the square comes out clear to the

edge it's clubs, every time, and there's just as many spots as there is

of lines—"

He was interrupted by a volley, apparently from every gun on the roofs

of the cars. Then a chorus of shrill, treble, boyish yells, and next

instant another volley. The two sprang to the door and looked out. Not a

sign of a rebel anywhere. Si went up one side of the car, Shorty the

other. They ran along the tops of the cars, storming at the boys,

kicking them and bumping their heads against the boards to make them

stop. When they succeeded Si sternly ordered every one of them to leave

the roofs and come down into the cars. When he had gathered them there

he demanded:

"Now, I want to know at once what this means?" Little Pete Skidmore

again became the spokesman of the abashed crowd.

"Why, them men back there on the switch cautioned us above all things

not to let the rebels git the drop on us when we come to that crick;

that we wouldn't see nothin' of 'em—nothin' but a low bank, behind which

they wuz hid, with their guns pokin' through the brush, but the moment

we see the bank breastwork throwed up along the crick we must let into

it. That's what it's for. The rebels throwed it up to hide behind. Them

men said that the brush back there was as full o' rebels as a hound o'

fleas, and that we must let into 'em the moment we see the bank, or

they'd git the drop on us. They had an awful time there theirselves, and

they gave us all the catridges they had left for us to use."

"You little numbskulls," said Si; "why didn't you come to use and tell

us about this?"

"They told us to be partickeler and say nothin' to you. Your stayin'

back there in the car showed that you didn't know nothin' about it; you

hadn't bin down this way for a long time and wasn't up to the latest

improvements, and you wuz jest as like as not to run us into a hornets'

nest; that you wuzzent our real officers, anyway, and it didn't much

matter to you what happened to us."

"Our own sins are comin' back on us. Shorty," remarked Si. "This is a

judgment on you for the way you've filled up recruits at every chance

you got."

"'Taint on me," said Shorty, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not in

command. You are."

"I shall be mighty glad when we git this outfit to Chattanoogy," sighed

Si. "I'm gittin' older every minute that I have 'em on my hands."

CHAPTER XIX. THE FIRST SCRAPE A LITTLE INITIATORY SKIRMISH WITH THE

GUERRILLAS.

THE train passed Shelbyville in the course of the afternoon and halted

on a switch. Tired of reading, Si was standing at the door of the car,

looking out over the country and trying to identify places they had

passed or camped at during the campaign of the previous Summer. Suddenly

his far-seeing eyes became fixed on the intervals in the trees on the

farthest hill-top. Without turning his head he called Shorty in a tone

which made that worthy lose all interest in his inevitable pack of cards

and spring to his side. Without speaking, Si pointed to the sky-line of

the eminence, against which moving figures sketched themselves.

"Guerrillas," said Shorty.

Si nodded affirmatively.

"Skeetin' acrost the country to jump this train or some other,"

continued Shorty.

"This one, most likely," answered Si.

"Yes," accorded Shorty, with an estimating glance at the direction of

the range of hills, "and'll aim at strikin' us at some bridge or deep

cut about 10 miles from here."

"Where we'll probably git sometime after dark," assented Si.

"Yes. Let's talk to the conductor and engineer."

The train had started in the meanwhile, but presently the conductor came

back into the caboose. He had been a soldier, but so severely wounded as

to necessitate his discharge as incapable of further field service.

"I hardly think there's any danger," said Conductor Madden. "Things 've

been very quiet this side of the Tennessee River ever since last

October, when Crook, Wilder and Minty belted the life out of old Joe

Wheeler down there at Farmington and Rodgersville. Our cavalry gave

theirs an awful mauling, and them that were lucky enough to escape

acrost the river have seemed purty well satisfied to stay on that side.

A hell's mint of 'em were drowned trying to get acrost the river. Our

cavalry's been patrolling the country ever since, but hasn't seen

anything of consequence. Still, it is possible that some gang has

managed to sneak acrost a blind-ford somewhere, and in hopes to catch a

train. Guerrillas are always where you find 'em."

"Well, I'll bet a hatful o' red apples," said Si, "that them was

guerrillas that we saw, and they're makin' for this train. The rebels in

Nashville somehow got information to 'em about it."

"Them's guerrillas," affirmed Shorty, "sure's the right bower takes the

left. None o' our cavalry's stringin' around over the hill-tops. Then, I

made out some white horses, which our cavalry don't have. It's just as

Si says, them Nashville spies 's put the rebel cavalry onto us."

"Them cowardly, sneaking, death-deserving rebels in Nashville," broke

out Conductor Madden, with a torrent of oaths. "Every man in Nashville

that wears citizen's clothes ought to be hung on sight, and half the

women. They don't do nothing but lay around and take the oath of

allegiance, watch every move we make like a cat does a mouse, and send

information through the lines. You can't draw a ration of hardtack but

they know it, and they're looking down your throat while you're eating

it. They haint got the gravel in their craws to go out and fight

themselves, and yet they've cost us a hundred times as many lives as if

they had. Why does the General allow them to stay there? He ought to

order rocks tied to the necks of every blasted one of 'em and fling 'em

into the Cumberland River and then pour turpentine on the infernal old

town and touch a match to it. That's what I'd do if I had my way.

There's more, brimstone trouble to the acre in Nashville than in any

town on the footstool, not barring even Richmond."

"Nashville certainly is tough," sighed Shorty. "'Specially in gamblers.

Worst tin-horn crowd that ever fumbled a deck or skinned a greeny out o'

the last cent o' his bounty. Say, Si, do you remember that tin-horny

that I cleaned out o' his whole pile down there at Murfreesboro, with

them cards that I'd clipped with a pair o' scissors, so's I'd know 'em

by the feel, and he never ketched on till his last shinplaster was gone,

and then I throwed the pack in the fire? Well, I seen him down there at

the depot smellin' around for suckers. I told him to let our boys alone

or I'd snap his neck off short. Great Jehosephat, but I wanted a chance

to git up town and give some o' them cold-deckers a whirl."

"Well," said Conductor Madden, after some deliberation, "I believe what

you boys say. You're not the kind to get rattled and make rebels out of

cedar-bushes. All the same, there's nothing to do but go ahead. My

orders were to take this train through to Chattanooga as quick as I

could. I can't stop on a suspicion."

"No, indeed," assented Si and Shorty.

"There's no place to telegraph from till we get to Bridgeport, on the

Tennessee, and if we could telegraph they wouldn't pay any attention to

mere reports of having seen rebels at a distance. They want something

more substantial than that."

"Of course they do, and very properly," said Si. "Is your engineer all

right?"

"Game as they make 'em, and loyal as Abraham Lincoln himself," responded

the conductor.

"Well, I believe our boys 's all right. They're green, and they're

friskier than colts in a clover field, but they're all good stuff, and I

believe we kin stand off any ordinary gang o' guerrillas. I'll chance

it, anyhow. This's a mighty valuable train to risk, but it ought to go

through, for we don't know how badly they may need it. You tell your

engineer to go ahead carefully and give two long whistles if he sees

anything dangerous."

"I'll go and git onto the engine with him," said Shorty.

"Wait a little," said Si. "We'll get the boys together, issue 'em

catridges and give 'em a little preparation for a light, if we're to

have one."

The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped

to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the

boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware

skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of

animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care

in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on

his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope

he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he

had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient

lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at

the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last

Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar

staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic

doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much

impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill-

stones over an adjacent pond.

"'Tention!" shouted Si.

There was something so different in the tone from that in which Si had

before spoken, that it arrested the attention of every one of them

instantly.

"Git your guns and fall in two ranks on that sod, there, at once,"

commanded Si, in quick, curt accents.

An impalpable something in the tones and words stilled everybody into

seriousness. This was deepened by the look they saw on Si's face.

They snatched up their guns and hurried into line on the spot indicated,

looking into each other's countenances and into that of Si's for an

explanation of what was up.

"Mackall and Joslyn," called Shorty from the car, "come here and take

this box of catridges."

"Now," said Si, as they did this, "Joslyn, you and Mackall issue those

to the boys. One of you walk down in front and the other behind and give

each man two packages of catridges. You boys open the packages and put

the catridges in your catridgeboxes, bullet-end up, and the caps in your

capboxes."

The boys followed his directions with nervous eagerness, inspired by his

words and manner, and then fixed their anxious gaze upon him for further

impartment.

Si walked down in front, in the rear of the line, superintending the

operation.

"Now, boys," said Si, taking his place in front and facing them, "you've

bin talkin' about guerrillas ever since we crossed the Ohio, but now

there's a prospect o' meetin' some. I hadn't expected to see any till

after we'd reached Chattanoogy, but guerrillas's never where you expect

'em."

"Knowin' you was so anxious to see 'em, they've come up the road to meet

you," interjected Shorty.

"It looks," continued Si, "as if they'd got news of the train and

slipped out here to take it away from us. They may attack it at any

minute after we start agin. Now, we mustn't let 'em git it. It's too

valuable to the Government to lose and too valuable to them to git. We

mustn't let 'em have it, I tell you. Now, I want you to load your guns

carefully, handle 'em very carefully after they are loaded, git back in

the cars, stop skylarkin', keep very quiet, listen for orders, and when

you git 'em, obey 'em to the letter—no more, no less."

Watching the Bridge Burners at Work 259

"Can't we go back on top o' the cars, where we kin watch for 'em, and

git the first pop at 'em?" said Harry Joslyn, in a pleading tone.

"No; that's too dangerous, and you'll lose time in gittin' together,"

answered Si. "You must all come into the cars with me."

"Sergeant," said Shorty, "let me have a couple to go on the engine with

me."

"Le' me go. Le' me go," they all seemed to shout at once, holding up

their hands in eager school-boy fashion.

"I can't take but two o' you," said Shorty; "more'd be in the way."

They all pressed forward. "Count out. That's the only fair way," shouted

the boys in the center.

"That's so," said Harry Joslyn. "Stand still till I count. Imry, Ory,

Ickery, Ann, Quevy, Quavy, Irish Navy, Filleson, Folleson,

Nicholas—Buck! That's me. I'm it!"

He rapidly repeated the magic formula, and pronounced Gid Mackall "it."

"He didn't count fair! He didn't count fair! He never counts fair,"

protested the others; but Si hustled them into the cars and the train

started.

It had grown quite dark. The boys sat silent and anxiously expectant on

their seats, clutching their loaded guns, held stiffly upright, and

watching Si's face as well as they could by the dim light of the single

oil lamp. Si leaned against the side of the door and watched intently.

Only little Pete Skidmore was unrepressed by the gravity of the

situation. Rather, it seemed to spur his feet, his hands and his mouth

to nimbler activity. He was everywhere—at one moment by Si's side in the

door of the car, at the next climbing up to peer out of the window; and

then clambering to the top of the car, seeing legions of guerrillas in

the bushes, until sternly ordered back by Si. Then he would drop the

butt of his musket on the floor with a crash which would start every one

of the taut nerves to throbbing. And the questions that he asked:

"Say, Sergeant, will the guerrillas holler before they shoot, or shoot

before they holler?"

"Sometimes one and sometimes the other," responded Si, absently. "Keep

quiet, Pete."

Quiet for a minute, and then:

"Shall we holler before we shoot or shoot before we holler?"

"Neither. Keep perfectly quiet, and 'tend strictly to your little

business."

"I think we ought to holler some. Makes it livelier. What sort o' guns

has the guerrillas?"

"Every kind—shot-guns, pistols, rifles, flint-locks, cap-locks—every

kind. Now, you mustn't ask me any more questions. Don't bother me."

"Yes, sir; I won't."

Quiet for at least five seconds. Then:

"Have the guerrillas guns that'll shoot through the sides of the cars?"

"Probably."

"Then I'd ruther be on top, where I kin see something. Kin they shoot

through the sides o' the tender, and let all the water out and stop the

engine?"

"Guess not."

"Haven't they any real big guns that will?"

"Mebbe."

"Kin we plug up the holes, anyway, then, and start agin?"

"Probably."

"Hain't the engineer got an iron shield that he kin git behind, so they

can't shoot him?"

"Can't he turn the steam onto 'em, and scald 'em if they try to git at

him?"

"What'll happen if they shoot the head-light out?"

"Why wouldn't it be a good idee to put a lot o' us on the cow-ketcher,

with fixed bayonets, and then let the engineer crack on a full head o'

steam and run us right into 'em?"

"Great Scott, Pete, you must stop askin' questions," said Si

desperately. "Don't you see Pm busy?"

Pete was silent for another minute. Then he could hold in no longer:

"Sergeant, jest one question more, and then I'll keep quiet."

"Well, what is it?"

"If the rebels shoot the bell, won't it make a noise that they kin hear

clear back at Nashville?"

The engine suddenly stopped, and gave two long whistles. Above the

screech they heard shots from Shorty and the two boys with him.

"Here they are, boys," said Si, springing out and running up the bank.

"All out, boys. Come up here and form."

As he reached the top of the bank a yell and a volley came from the

other side of the creek. Shorty joined him at once, bringing the two

boys on the engine with him.

"We've bin runnin' through this deep cut," he explained, "and jest come

out onto the approach to the bridge, when we see a little fire away

ahead, and the head-light showed some men runnin' down on to the bank on

the other side o' the crick. We see in a moment what was up. They've

jest got to the road and started a fire on the bridge that's about a

mile ahead. Their game was to burn that bridge, and when this train

stopped, burn this one behind us, ketch us, whip us, and take the train.

We shot at the men we see on the bank, but probably didn't do 'em no

harm. They're all pilin' down now to the other bank to whip us out and

git the train. You'd better deploy the boys along the top o' the bank

here and open on 'em. We can't save that bridge, but we kin this and the

train, by keepin' 'em on the other side o' the crick. I'll take charge

o' the p'int here with two or three boys, and drive off any o' them that

tries to set fire to the bridge, and you kin look out for the rest o'

the line. It's goin' to be longtaw work, for you see the crick's purty

wide, but our guns 'll carry further'n theirs, and if we keep the boys

well in hand I think we kin stand 'em off without much trouble."

"Sure," said Si confidently. "You watch the other side o' the bridge and

I'll look out for the rest."

The eager boys had already begun firing, entering into the spirit of the

thing with the zest of a Fame of town-ball. Shorty took Gid Mackall and

Harry Joslyn down to the cover of some large stones, behind which they

could lie and command the approach to the other end of the bridge with

their rifles. Si took the other boys and placed them behind rocks and

stumps along the crest and instructed them to fire with as good aim as

possible at the flashes from the other side. In a minute or two he had a

fine skirmish-line in operation, with the boys firing as deliberately

and accurately as veterans. The engineer had backed the train under the

cover of the cut, and presently he and the conductor came up with guns

and joined the firing-line.

"I say, Shorty," said Si, coming down to where that worthy was

stationed, "what d' you think o' the boys now? They take to this like a

duck to water. They think it's more fun than squirrel-huntin'. Listen."

They heard Monty Scruggs's baritone call:

"Say, Alf, did you see me salt that feller that's bin yellin' and

cussin' at me over there? He's cussin' now for something else. I think I

got him right where he lived."

"I wasn't paying any attention to you," Alf's fine tenor replied, as his

rammer rang in his barrel. "I've got business o' my own to 'tend to.

There's a feller over there that's firing buckshot at me that I've got

to settle, and here goes."

"The 200th Injianny Volunteers couldn't put up a purtier skirmish than

this," murmured Si, in accents of pride, as he raised his gun and fired

at a series of flashes on the farther bank.

"I say, tell that engineer to uncouple his engine and bring it back up

here where the head-light'll cover the other side," said Shorty. "It'll

make the other side as light as day and we kin see every move, while

we'll be in the dark."

"Good idee," said Si, hastening to find the engineer.

He was none too soon. As the engine rolled up, flooding its advance with

light, it brought a storm of bullets from the other side, but revealed

three men creeping toward the other end of the bridge. Two were carrying

pine knots, and the third, walking behind, had a stick of blazing pine,

which he was trying to shield from observation with his hat.

"Take the front man, Harry. Take the second one, Gid. I'll take the man

with the light," commanded Shorty.

The three rifles cracked in quick succession and the three men dropped.

"Bully, boys," ejaculated Shorty, as he reloaded. "You'll do. The 200th

Injianny's proud o' you."

"I hit my man in the leg," said Harry, flushing with delight, as he bit

off another cartridge. "Jerusalem, I wish they'd send another one down."

"I drawed on my man's bundle o' wood," said Gid, "and then dropped a

little, so's to git him where he was biggest and make sure o' him."

"Well, my man's beauty's spiled forever," said Shorty. "The light flared

up on his face and I let him have it there."

"But Linden saw another light. When beat the drums at dead of night,

Commanding fires of death to hight The darkness of her scenery,"

recited Monty Scruggs. "Gracious, I'm hit!"

"Where?" asked Si, running up to him.

"Through my leg," answered Monty.

"Kin you walk?"

"I guess so."

"Well, make your way back to the cars and git in and lay down."

"Not much," answered Monty determinedly. "It don't hurt much, and I'm

going to stay and see this thing out. I can tie it up with my

handkerchief."

"Scatter again, boys," Si warned several, who had rushed up; "don't make

too big a mark for the fellers on the other side. Go back and 'tend to

your bizniss. I'll help him tie up his wound. I'm afeared, though, that

some o' the boys are runnin' out o' catridges, they have bin shootin' so

rapidly. I want a couple o' you to run back to the cars and git another

box."

"Let me and Sandy go," pleaded little Pete Skidmore. "The big boys went

before."

"All right; skip out. Break the lid o' the box off before you take it

out o' the car. We haven't anything here to do it with. Leave your guns

here."

"No, we'll take 'em along," pleaded Pete, with a boyish love for his

rifle. "We mightn't be able to find 'em agin."

The firing from the opposite bank became fitful, died down, and then

ceased altogether. Then a couple of shots rang out from far in the rear

in the direction of the train. This seemed to rouse the rebels to

another volley, and then all became quiet. The shots in the rear

disturbed Si, who started back to see what they meant, but met Pete

Skidmore and Sandy Baker coming panting up, carrying a box of cartridges

between them.

"We got back as quick as we could," Pete explained as he got his breath.

"Just as we was coming to the train we see a rebel who was carrying a

fat-pine torch, and making for the train to set it on fire. We shot him.

Was that all right?"

"Perfectly," said Si. "Was there any more with him?"

"No. We looked around for others, but couldn't find none. That's what

kept up so long."

"The Johnnies have given it up and gone," said Shorty, coming up. "I

went over to a place where I could see 'em skippin' out by the light o'

the burnin' o' the other bridge. We might as well put out guards here

and go into camp till mornin'."

"All right," assented Si. "We've saved the train and bridge, and that's

all we kin do."

CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE SKIRMISH WILD SHOOTING WAS ALL THAT SAVED A

SURPRISED COLORED MAN.

THOUGH Si and Shorty were certain that the trouble was over and the

rebels all gone, it was impossible to convince the boys of this. The

sudden appearance of the guerrillas had been so mysterious that they

could not rid themselves of the idea that the dark depths beyond the

creek were yet filled with vicious foemen animated by dire intents.

Si and Shorty gathered the boys together on the bank above the railroad

cut, had fires built, posted a few guards, and ordered the rest of the

boys to lie down and go to sleep. They set the example by unrolling

their own blankets at the foot of a little jack-oat, whose thickly-

growing branches, still bearing a full burden of rusty-brown leaves,

made an excellent substitute for a tent.

"Crawl in. Si, and git some sleep," said Shorty, filling his pipe. "I'll

take a smoke and set up for an hour or two. If it looks worth while

then, I'll wake you up and let you take a trick o' keepin' awake. But if

everything looks all right I'll jest crawl in beside you and start a

snorin'-match."

But neither orders nor example could calm down the nerves of boys who

had just had their first experience under fire. There was as little rest

for them as for a nest of hornets which had been rudely shaken. They lay

down at Si's order, but the next minute they were buzzing together in

groups about the fires, or out with their guns to vantage points on the

bank, looking for more enemies. Their excited imaginations made the

opposite bank of the creek alive with men, moving in masses, squads and

singly, with the sounds of footsteps, harsh commands, and of portentous

movements.

Two or three times Shorty repressed them and sharply ordered them to lie

down and go to sleep. Then he decided to let them wear themselves out,

braced his back against a sapling near the fire, pulled out from his

pocket the piece of Maria's dress, and became lost in a swarm of

thoughts that traveled north of the Ohio River.

He was recalled by Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall appearing before him.

"Say, Corpril," inquired Harry, "what's to be done with them rebels over

there at the end o' the bridge?"

"Them that we shot?" said Shorty carelessly, feeling around for his

tobacco to refill his pipe. "Nothin'. I guess we've done enough for 'em

already."

"Don't we do nothin' more?" repeated Harry.

"No," answered Shorty, as he rubbed the whittlings from his plug to

powder in the hollow of his hand.

"Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way

whistlin'?" persisted Harry.

"Certainly," answered Shorty, filling his pipe and looking around for a

sliver with which to light it. "What're you thinkin' about?"

"I don't hardly know," hesitated Harry. "It seems awful strange just to

blaze away at men and then pay no more attention to 'em. They mayn't be

knocked out at all—only 'possumin'."

"No 'possumin' about them fellers," said Shorty sententiously, as he

lighted his pipe. "Feller that gits an ounce o' lead from a Springfield

rifle anywhere in his carkiss don't play off nor purtend. He's got

something real to occupy his attention, if he's got any attention left

to occupy. You needn't bother any more about them fellers over there.

Their names's mud. They're now only part o' the real estate on the other

side o' the crick. They're suddently become no good for poll-tax; only

to be assessed by the acre."

"So you're sure they can't do more harm to the bridge?"

"No more'n the dead leaves on the banks."

"But I thought," persisted Harry, "that when a man's killed something

had to be done—coroner's inquest, corpse got ready, funeral, preacher,

neighbors gather in, and so on."

"Well, you needn't bother about any obsequies to them fellers over

there," said Shorty, sententiously, as he pulled away at his pipe. "You

done your whole share when you done the heavy work o' providin' the

corpses. Let anybody that wants to put on any frills about plantin' 'em.

If we have time tomorrow mornin' and nothin' better to do, we may go

over there and dig holes and put 'em in. But most likely we'll be needed

to rebuild that bridge they burnt. I'd rather do that, so's we kin hurry

on to Chattynoogy. Buzzards'll probably be their undertakers. They've

got a contract from the Southern Confedrisy for all that work. You lay

down and go to sleep. That's the first dooty of a soldier. You don't

know what may be wanted o' you tomorrow, and you should git yourselves

in shape for anything—fightin', marchin' or workin'."

"And sha'n't we do nothin' neither to that man that we shot when he was

tryin' to set fire to the train?" asked little Pete Skidmore, who with

Sandy Baker had come up and listened to Shorty's lecture. "He's still

layin' out there where he dropped, awful still. Me and Sandy took a

piece o' fat pine and went down and looked at him. We didn't go very

close. We didn't like to. He seemed so awful quiet and still."

"No; you let him alone," snapped Shorty impatiently. "He'll keep. Lay

down and git some sleep, I tell you. What need you bother about a dead

rebel? He ain't makin' no trouble. It's the livin' ones that need

lookin' out for."

The boys' looks showed that they were face to face with one of the

incomprehensibilities of war. But they lay down and tried to go to

sleep, and Shorty's thoughts returned to Indiana.

A shot rang out from the post on which he had stationed Jim Humphreys.

He was on his feet in an instant, with his gun in hand, and in the next

Si was beside him.

"What's up?" inquired Si, rubbing his eyes.

"Nothin', I believe," answered Shorty. "But hold the boys and I'll go

out and see."

He strode forward to Jim's side and demanded what he had shot at.

"I saw some men tryin' to cross the crick there," replied Jim, pointing

with his rammer in the direction of the opposite bank.

"There, you kin see 'em for yourself."

"I don't see no men," said Shorty, after a moment's scrutiny.

"There they are. Don't you see that white there?" said Jim, capping his

musket for another shot.

"That white," said Shorty contemptously, "is some water-birches. They

was there when you came on guard, for I noticed 'em, and they hain't

moved since. You seen 'em then, lookin' just as they do now. You're a

fool to think you kin see anything white in a rebel. 'Taint their

color."

"I don't care," half whimpered Jim. "Gid Mackall, and Harry Joslyn, and

Alf Russell, and Pete Skidmore, and even Sandy Baker, have all shot

rebels, and I hain't hit none. I don't have half-a-show."

"Be patient," Shorty consoled him. "Your three years's only begun.

You'll have lots o' chances yit. But if I ketch you shootin' at any more

white birches I'll tie you up by the thumbs."

Shorty returned to the fire. Si bade the boys he down again, and took

his own blanket. Shorty relighted his pipe, took out his never-failing

deck of cards and began running them over.

Wild Shooting of the Boys Saves The Surprised Colored Man. 273

Jim Humphreys's shot had given new restlessness to the boys. They did

not at all believe in Shorty's diagnosis of the situation. There must be

more men lurking over there whence all that murderous shooting had come

only a little while ago. Jim Humphreys was more than probably right. One

after another of them quietly slipped away from the fire with his gun

and made his way down to Jim Humphreys's post, which commanded what

seemed to be a crossing of the creek. They stood there and scanned the

opposite bank of darkness with tense expectancy. They had their ears

tuned up to respond to even the rustle of the brown, dry leaves on the

trees and the murmur of the creek over the stones. They even saw the

white birches move around from place to place and approach the water,

but Shorty's dire threat prevented their firing until they got something

more substantial.

"There's rebels over there, sure as you're born,"' murmured Jim to them,

without turning his head to relax his fixed gaze nor taking his finger

from the trigger of his cocked gun. "Wish they'd fire a gun first to

convince that old terror of a Corpril, who thinks he kin tell where

rebels is just by the smell. I'd—"

"Sh! Jim, I hear a hoss's hoofs," said Harry Joslyn.

"Sh! so do I," echoed Gid Mackall.

They all listened with painful eagerness.

"Hoss's hoofs and breakin' limbs, sure's you're a foot high," whispered

Harry. "And they're comin' down the hill this way."

"That's right. They're a'most to the crick now," assented Gid. "I'm

going to shoot."

"No; I've got the right to a first shot," said Jim. "You fellers hold

off."

Bang went Jim's gun, followed almost instantly by the others.

"Hi, dere, boys; I's done found you at las'! Whoopee!" called out a

cheery voice from across the creek, and a man rode boldly down to the

water's edge, where the boys were nervously reloading.

"Now, Jim Humphreys, what in blazes are you bangin' away at now?"

angrily demanded Si, striding up. "At a cotton-tailed rabbit or a

sycamore stump?"

"The woods is full o' rebel cavalry comin' acrost the crick," gasped

Jim, as he rammed down his cartridge. "There, you kin see 'em for

yourself."

"What foh you come dis-a-way, boys?" continued the voice of the man on

horseback. "I done los' you! I fought we done agreed to go ober by

Simpson's hill, an' I jine you dar. I went dat-a-way, an' den I hear you

shootin' ober dis-a-way, an' seed yoh fiah, and I cut acrost to git to

you. Whah'd you git so many guns, an' sich big ones? Sound like sojer

guns. I done beared dem way ober dah, an' I—"

"Hold on, boys," sternly shouted Shorty, springing in front of them and

throwing up their guns. "Don't one o' you dare shoot! Hold up, I say!

Hello, you there! Who are you?"

"Who's me?" said the negro, astonished by the strange voice. "I's Majah

Wilkinson's Sam, Massa Patrol. I's got a pass all right. De old Majah

done tole me I could go out coon-huntin' wid Kunnel Oberly's boys

tonight, but I done missed dem."

"Come ashore here, boy," commanded Shorty, "and be thankful that you're

alive. You've had a mighty narrow squeak of it. Next time you go out

coon huntin' be sure there's no Yankee and rebel soldiers huntin' one

another in the neighborhood. Coons have a tough time then."

"Yankee sojers!" gasped the negro, as he was led back to the fire, and

saw the blue uniforms. "Lawdy, massy, don't kill me. I pray, sah, don't.

I hain't done nuffin. Sho' I hain't. Massa said you'd burn me alibe if

you eber cotched me, but you won't, will you?"

"We ain't goin' to hurt you," said Shorty. "Sit down there by the fire

and git the goose-flesh offen you." Then turning to the boys he remarked

sarcastically:

"Fine lot o' marksmen you are, for a fact. Halfa dozen o' you bangin'

away at a hundred yards, and not comin' close enough to a nigger to let

him know you was shootin' at him. Now will you lay down and go to sleep?

Here, Si, you take charge o' this gang and let me go to sleep. I've had

enough o' them for one night."

During the night a train came up, carrying a regiment of entirely new

troops. In the morning these scattered over the ground, scanning

everything with the greatest interest and drinking in every detail of

the thrilling events of the previous night.

"It's just killin'," said Si to Shorty, "to watch the veteran airs our

boys are puttin' on over those new fellers. You'd think they'd fit in

every battle since Bunker Hill, and learned Gen. Grant all he knows

about tactics. Talk about the way the old fellers used to fill us up,

why, these boys lay away over everything we ever knowed. I overheard

Harry Joslyn laying it into about 40 of them. 'No man knows just what

his feelin's will be under fire until he has the actual experience,'

says he. 'Now, the first time I heard a rebel bullet whistle,' and his

face took on a look as if he was trying to recollect something years

ago."

"Yes," laughed Shorty, "and you should hear little Pete Skidmore and

Sandy Baker lecturing them greenies as to the need o' lookin' carefully

to their rear and beware o' rebels sneakin' 'round and attackin' their

trains. Hold on. Look through this brush. There's Monty Scruggs

explainin' the plan o' battle to a crowd of 'em. He don't know we're

anywhere around. Listen and you'll hear something."

"The enemy had reached the ground in advance of us," Monty was

elucidating, in language with which his school histories and the daily

papers had familiarized him, "and had strongly posted himself along

those hights, occupying a position of great natural strength, including

their own natural cussedness. Their numbers was greatly superior to

ours, and they had prepared a cunning trap for us, which we only escaped

by the vigilance of Corpril Elliott and the generalship of Serg't Klegg.

I tell you, those men are a dandy team when it comes to running a

battle. They know their little biz, and don't you forget it for a

minute. The enemy opened a galling fire, when Corpril Elliott gallantly

advanced to that point there and responded, while Serg't Klegg rapidly

arrayed his men along there, and the battle became terrific. It was like

the poet says:

"'Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steeds to

battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flashed the red

artillery.'"

"O, come off, Monty," called the more prosaic Gid Mackall; "you know we

didn't have no artillery. If we'd had, we'd a blowed 'em clean offen the

hill."

The whistle summoned them to get aboard and move on.

CHAPTER 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

PREFACE.

SI KLEGG

CHAPTER I. SHORTY BEGINS BEING A FATHER TO PETE SKIDMORE

CHAPTER II. SI AND SHORTY COME VERY NEAR LOSING THEIR BOYS

CHAPTER III. THE PARTNERS GET BACK TO THEIR REGIMENT AT LAST

CHAPTER IV. THE RECRUITS ARE ASSIGNED TO COMPANIES

CHAPTER V. THE YOUNG RECRUITS

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

CHAPTER VII. SHORTY'S HEART TURNS TOWARD MARIA

CHAPTER VIII. SHORTY WRITES A LETTER TO MARIA KLEGG

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

CHAPTER X. THE BOYS HAVE A COUPLE OF LITTLE SKIRMISHES

CHAPTER XI. SHORTY GIVES THE BOYS THEIR FIRST LESSON IN FORAGING

CHAPTER XII. THE OPENING OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER XIII. THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER XIV. THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE

CHAPTER XV. THE FIGHTING AROUND BUZZARD ROOST

CHAPTER XVI. THE 200TH IND. ASSAULTS THE REBEL WORKS AT DAYBREAK

CHAPTER XVII. GATHERING UP THE BOYS AFTER THE BATTLE

CHAPTER XVIII. AN ARTILLERY DUEL

CHAPTER XIX. SI AND SHORTY ARE PUT UNDER ARREST

CHAPTER 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