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With a small band of warriors he started on his errand of vengeance. Osceola knew General Thompson's habits. He was accustomed to take a walk after dinner while he smoked a cigar. Frequently he walked some distance from the fort, going out towards the sutler's house, where he sometimes had business. Osceola determined to wait for him in that vicinity.
One of the shrewdest and nearest successful attempts to escape that came under my notice was that of my friend Sergeant Frank Reverstock, of the Third West Virginia Cavalry, of whom I have before spoken. Frank, who was quite small, with a smooth boyish face, had converted to his own use a citizen's coat, belonging to a young boy, a Sutler's assistant, who had died in Andersonville.
"I'd give this hundred dollars for a good cigar," he added, "but there isn't one in the army." One of the men sang: "I am busted, mother, busted. Gone the last unhappy check; And the infernal sutler's prices Make every pocket-book a wreck." Prescott sat reading a newspaper.
And with a snap that was heard all over the assemblage the lead of Loring's pencil broke short off. He sat staring at Nevins, white and stunned. The sutler's "shack" at Camp Cooke was crowded with officers that evening and the episode of Nevins' address was the talk of all tongues.
One of these was the sutler's store, just on the edge of the reservation. But, for the most part, the post consisted of two- or three-story buildings arranged in the form of a hollow square. These were barracks, officers' quarters, and depots for the storage of military supplies and army equipments. "Why, this is no fort!" said Oscar, contemptuously. "There isn't even a stockade.
Monseigneur, we will drive them away," said the same officer. "Yes," the marshal muttered between his clinched teeth; "we shall see what we shall see." At this moment the mule arrived bearing the sutler's supplies, which had been long and impatiently expected. There was no table; but one was made of a door placed on casks, and seats were improvised with planks.
This ecstasy can best be understood by those who have seen the capture of a sutler's wagon by hungry Confederates; and the fantastic vision of a separate peace became a sober reality at many points on the lines of the contending parties. The Federal outposts twitted ours with their lack of coffee and sugar; ours taunted the Federals with their lack of tobacco.
There was little choice left. The girl would never make an appointment with him except through necessity, and it was manifestly his duty to protect her from observation. Two of the men sitting there were strangers; the others he knew merely by sight, a tin-horn gambler called Charlie, and a sutler's clerk. His decision was swift, and characteristic.
I looked around for my gun, and found that I had left it behind. The last I could remember about it was that I had it at the sutler's store. I informed Major Brown of my loss, who said that I was a nice scout to start out without a gun.
Before going far I had the good luck to meet a sutler's wagon, and though its stock was about all sold, there were still left four large bologna sausages, which I promptly purchased paying a round sum for them too and hastening back found the Count already returned, though without bringing anything at all to eat; but he had secured a couple of bottles of brandy, and with a little of this it was excellent, too and the sausages, the slim ration of eggs and coffee was amply reinforced.
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