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The next morning after breakfast, and as Si and Shorty were preparing to go to Division Headquarters, Si said: "Pap, you just stay at home and keep house to day. Keep your eyes on the boys; I tell it to you in confidence, for I wouldn't for the world have it breathed outside the company, that Co. Q's the most everlastin' set o' thieves that ever wore uniform.
Into one of these Si had gone, to come again floundering and spurting muddy water from his mouth. Shorty noted the place and took the first opportunity to crowd the Wagon Master into it. A wagon loaded with crackers and pork missed the reef and went over hopelessly on its side, to the rage of Col. McTamaghan.
If a man can go jammin' hot irons on to little calves and slicin' pieces off 'em with his knife, and live along, keepin' a kindness for animals in his heart, he has got some good in him. And that's what Shorty has got. But he is lettin' Trampas get a hold of him, and both of them will leave us." And the Virginian looked out across the huge winter whiteness again.
An' when you feel better you can spell me." It was heart-breaking toil, but they gained the shore, only to find it composed of surge-beaten rocks and cliffs, with no place to land. "I told you so," Sprague whimpered. "You never peeped," Shorty answered. "We're going back." Nobody spoke, and Kit held the boat into the seas as they skirted the forbidding shore.
He had been asleep when the uproar began, and had reached the door only in time to see the creams come down the grade like a daylight shooting star. "I guess they was breaking a bronk," he said, carelessly; "you've got enough baggage for a trip round the world, Dell. I hope it ain't all dope for us poor devils. Tell Shorty I want t' see him, Chip."
The men stacked their arms, and lay around on the ground to get what sleep was possible, and which was a good deal, for the night was pleasant, and there are worse beds than the mossy hillside on a July night. "Too bad that your weddin' night had to be broken up so," said Si sympathetically, as he and Shorty and the bridegroom sat together on a knoll and watched the distant flames.
I don't want to say anything against your honesty or your veracity, but if Gen, Rosecrans was to order me to get him the smartest forager and smoothest liar in the Army of the Cumberland, I think I should order you to report at Headquarters." "You do me proud," said Shorty with a grin, but an inward feeling that trouble was impending. "Now, tell me the truth. Where did you get that cow?"
"Don't care nothin' about that neither," replied Shorty, as they pushed the old man along through the blinding 'rain. "Our orders is merely to show you Goober Crick. 'Tain't none o' our business what the General wants you to see it for. Mebbe he thinks it 'll improve your mind to gaze on the beauties o' nature. Mebbe he thinks you need exercise. Mebbe he thinks a shower-bath'd do you good."
Can't you go out and gether up a lot o' niggers that we kin sell 'em?" "Sure," said Groundhog confidently. "Kin git all you want, if you'll pay for 'em. But what's this gang you've got with you?" "O, they're a batch for that blasted Abolition outfit, the 200th Injianny. Them two ornery galoots, Si and Shorty, whose necks I ought've broke when I was with the regiment, have brung 'em down.
"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.
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