ace showed the temptation was a trying one,
but he answered firmly:

"No; I won't do it."

"I'll put up a $10 bill agin one o' the guns, play you two out o' three
for it, learn you the tricks, and give you back the money if I win,"
said Shorty desperately.

Again the Sergeant's face showed great irresolution, but again his
fidelity triumphed, and he answered firmly, "No I won't." Then he
softened his refusal by saying:

"Come, Shorty, walk over a little way with me. I know where we can get
something good."

After they had shared a tincupful of applejack that a teamster supplied
them the Sergeant's heart thawed out a little.

"I tell you. Shorty, there's a gun in there that'd just tickle your boy
to death. It's an Enfield, new one, and has a Yankee bullet sticking in
the butt. Must've knocked the Johnny a double somersault when it struck.
I've been thinkin' sending it home myself. But I'll let you have it, and
I'll tell you how you can get it. See that camp over there? Well, that's
a regiment being organized out o' Tennessee refugees. They and their
officers are the carelessest lot of galoots that ever lived. Their
Quartermaster stores and their Commissary stores, and everything they
have is allowed to lie around loose, just wherever they get the notion
to drop them. I've had my eye on 'em for several days, and've helped
several of my friends to straighten up their company accounts, and
replace things that they'd lost. You just waltz over there, careless
like, as if you belonged to the regiment, pick up a gun and traps, put
'em on, and sail back here, and I'll turn your things in, and give you
that gun with the bullet in the stock in exchange."

Shorty lost no time in acting on the advice. That afternoon the express
from Chattanooga carried a gun to Sammy Woggles, the contemplation of
which deprived that youth of sleep the night after he received it, and
won him the cordial hatred of every boy in his neighborhood for his
overweening pride.

But after the gun was gone, and after Shorty had written a laborious
letter, informing Sammy of the shipment of the gun and its history,
which letter inclosed a crisp greenback, and was almost as urgent in
injunctions to Sammy to write as Sammy had been about his piece of
ordnance, Shorty sat down in sadness of heart. He was famishing for
information from Maria, and at the lowest calculation he could not hope
for a letter from Sammy for two weeks.

"It'll take at least a w