iment was invented. There is no doubt that there were
several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did
valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if
not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man
who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best
Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of which
those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.

The Publishers.

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TO THE RANK AND FILE

OF THE GREATEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.

THIS IS NUMBER SIX

OF THE

SI KLEGG SERIES.

SI KLEGG

CHAPTER I. SHORTY BEGINS BEING A FATHER TO PETE SKIDMORE.

"Come, my boy," Si said kindly. "Don't cry. You're a soldier now, and
soldiers don't cry. Stop it."

"Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm
cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose
me yit, with all this foolin' around."

"No, we won't," Si assured him. "You just keep with us and you'll be all
right."

"Here, you blim-blammed, moon-eyed suckers, git offen that 'ere
crossin'," yelled at them a fireman whose engine came tearing down
toward the middle of the squad. "Hain't you got no more sense than to
stand on a crossin'?"

He hurled a chunk of coal at the squad, which hastily followed Si to the
other side of the track.

"Hello, there; where are you goin', you chuckle-headed clodhoppers?"
yelled the men on another train rushing down from a different direction.
"This ain't no hayfield. Go back home and drive cows, and git out o' the
way o' men who're at work."

There was more scurrying, and when at last Si reached a clear space,
he had only a portion of his squad with him, while Shorty was vowing he
would not go a step farther until he had licked a railroad man. But
the engines continued to whirl back and forth in apparently purposeless
confusion, and the moment that he fixed upon any particular victim
of his wrath, he was sure to be compelled to jump out of the way of a
locomotive clanging up from an unexpected direction and interposing a
train of freight cars between him and the man he was after.

Si was too deeply exercised about getting his squad together to pay
attention to Shorty or the jeering, taunting railroaders. He became
very fearful that some of them had been caught and badly hurt, probably
killed, by the remorseless locomotives.

"Thi