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After sputtering vigorously a few minutes, while Shorty laughed at him. Si managed to get his tongue untwisted. "Yes," said he, "them things is nice in a horn! 'Twouldn't take many of 'em to make a meal!" A little farther on Si's quick eye noticed a row of beehives standing on a bench in the yard of one of the natives. Si had a weakness for honey. "Shorty," said he, "see them hives over there?
"I'm ordered to wait here for our squad, which will probably get here by to-morrow evening." A wild hope flashed up in Si's mind. "Lieutenant," he said, "we live right over there in Posey County. Can't you let us go home? We can make it, and be back here before to-morrow night." "I don't know," said the Lieutenant doubtfully, as he mentally calculated the distance to Posey County.
Klegg sat in Si's room, and between her fits of uncontrollable weeping turned over, one after another, the reminders of her son. There were his bed, his clothes, which she had herself fashioned in loving toil for him; the well-thumbed school-books which had cost him so many anxious hours, his gun and fishing rod. All these were now sacred to her.
The cow seemed disposed at first to resent the interference, but Si's persuasive "So, bossy" proved effectual in calming her fears, and she stood placidly chewing her cud while Si, spurred on by a guilty conscience, milked with all his might. The canteens were soon filled, and, with out stopping to drink. Si and Shorty hurried back to their post of duty.
Then something stirred in Eudena; something that had never stirred in her before; and, thinking all of little Si and nothing of her fear, she sprang up from her ambush and ran swiftly forward. The old woman did not see her, for she was busy beating little Si's face with her hand, beating with all her heart, and suddenly something hard and heavy struck her cheek.
During that evening the girls kept their secret closely guarded, while more than one of the boys had inadvertently divulged enough of Si's great scheme to enable the girls to judge quite clearly what they proposed to do.
Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. How about that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?" It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet, and he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmill were too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smote Shorty fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.
Let 'em have your guns," she said, and she caught Si's with such quick unexpectedness that she wrenched it from his grasp and flung it to the man who wanted Shorty's. She threw one arm around Shorty's neck, with a hug so muscular that his breath failed, and she wrenched his gun away. She kept this in her hand, however.
Shorty would long to throw himself in a fence-corner and rest for a week, until, as they went over some rise, he would catch sight of Si's sandy hair, well in the lead, when he would drink in fresh determination to keep up, if he died in the attempt.
''Tis matter of march treason, he said, when he heard of Si's means of escape from the Hawick halter. 'Whether he be married or no signifieth not, for all intercommuning with the Scots is clean against Border law. 'Tis a matter for the Lord Warden's court, and a hanging matter at that. Ay, "Merry Carlisle" will fit him fine. Thus devising his revenge he determined to act at once.
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