had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in
gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between
the Confederate States and the United States." He would make some
mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they
had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal,
chickens and sidemeat. They would know where to get more, and so the
transaction would be a pleasant one all around.

In the meanwhile, little Pete had visions of killing big game in the
mountain woods. The interminable forest suggested to him dreams of bear,
deer, buffalo, elk, and all the animals he had read about. It would be
a great thing to bring down an elk or a deer with his Springfield rifle,
and then be escorted back' to camp in triumph, with the other boys
carrying his game. He kept circling through the woods, in sight or
hearing of the others, expecting every minute to come upon some animal
that would fill his youthful sanguine hopes.

Shorty at last found a poor little cabin such as he had been looking
for. It was hidden away in a little cove, and had never been visited
by the men of either army. It had the usual occupants--a weak-eyed,
ague-smitten man, who was so physically worthless that even the
rebel conscripters rejected him; a tall, gaunt woman, with a vicious
shrillness in her voice and a pipe in her mouth; a half score of mangy
yellow dogs, and an equal number of wild, long-haired, staring children.
They had a little "jag" of meal in a bag, a piece of sidemeat, and a
half-dozen chickens. The man had that morning shot an opossum, lean from
its Winter fasting. Shorty rejected this contemptuously.

"I've bin mighty hungry in my time," said he, "but I never got quite
so low down as to eat anything with a tail like a rat. That'd turn my
stummick if I was famishin'."

The man looked on Shorty's display of wealth with lack-luster eyes, but
his wife was fascinated, and quickly closed up a deal which conveyed to
Shorty all the food that they had. Just as Shorty had completed payment,
there came a shot from little Pete's rifle, and the next instant that
youth appeared at the edge of the cornpatch extending up hill from the
cabin, hatless, and yelling at the top of his voice. Shorty and the
others picked up their guns and took position behind the trees.

"What's the matter, Pete?" asked Shorty, as the boy came up, breathless
from his long run. "Rebels out there?"

"No," gasped Pete. "I