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Si gathered up his outfit and started to enter upon his new sphere of usefulness. "Shall I take my gun and bay'net along?" he asked the Orderly. "Guess you'd better; they might come handy!" replied the Orderly, as he thought of the teamster's disastrous encounter with the "off-wheeler." After Shorty had eaten his breakfast he thought he would go back to the tent and see how Si was getting on.
He had his gun and bay'net, and I had only an axe. Fifty of 'em saw it ay, and cheered me when I did it and I'd do it again, him, wouldn't I? I ain't afraid of anybody; and I'd have the life of the man who split upon me. That's my maxim, and pass me the liquor. You wouldn't turn on a man. I know you. You're an honest feller, and will stand by a feller, and have looked death in the face like a man.
Joe turned away from Tom's sour puckered face, to bend over the insensible little patient with a look full of pity, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I should just liked to have been there, missus, with my bay'net fixed when they cut that little fellow down. Here, I'll sit and have a pipe and keep the flies off him, while you go and pick a bit.
"And they have found a lot of grain in one of the friar's houses. But about holding the place, that's a question. We are only about a hundred and fifty strong. What if Santa Anna storms the place some night, with several thousand men? We'll all be put to the bay'net afore sunrise." "Do you really think he'll do such a barbarous thing, Poke?" "Think it? I know it.
I say talk about discipline in the Rajah's army, and a chap forgetting his piece! Fancy old Tipsy, and it was me and my rifle! Plenty of water, plenty of bread and fruit, and a present of one of them spears, as will be handier than a fixed bay'net. Why isn't Mister Archie awake to enjoy all this?
I can't tell you all azackly, but that's something like it, and I think they are fighting now bad luck to them, as O'Grady would say! right in yonder where we had our braxfas'. I say, it's better than I thought, comrade." "In what way, Punch?" "Why, I had made up my mind, though I didn't like to tell you, that they'd give us both the bay'net. But they haven't.
And as they went home in the red sunset to Citico, and Great Tellico, and Tennessee Town and Choté, from along the river banks came their harsh cries "Shoulder firelock!" or "Fa'lock," as they rehearsed it. "Feex Bay'net! Pleasant A'hms!" It became evident that they rehearsed their learning, suiting the action to the word, once too often, for they returned no more.
'Stand back, men, he says, 'and be ready for 'em with the bay'net. 'Tweren't no manner o' use shooting; 'twere too close in there and our bullets might ha' ricochayed. We soon 'eerd 'em a-coughing. There wur a terrible deal o' smoke, and there wur we a-waiting at top of them stairs for 'em to come up like rats out of a hole.
Fixing his bayonet, he gave a fearful yell and started forward on a run for the position which the regiment had gained. He was soon in the lead of the pursuers, and appeared, by his later zeal, to be making amends for his earlier tardiness. As he ran ahead he shouted savagely: "Run down the hellions! Shoot 'em! Stab 'em! Bay'net 'em! Don't let one of 'em git away."
Sojer rid right up to me an' stuck his bay'net at me an' says, 'Boy, whar de tater house? An' I sho' did show him whar 'twas. Dem sojers sho' was starved. Dey take thirty tater punks, fifteen er twenty chickens, and five hams. Den dey went in de smoke house an' grabbed off five er ten poun's er sausage, middlln's, and sides.
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