into the
sitting-room for evening prayers. They had their caps in their hands,
and didn't say anything but brushed their hair back and took their seats
in the first place they could find, which happened to be Cap's cot. Cap
didn't notice 'em till after Cap Summerville had caught his queen and
then checkmated him in two moves. You know how redhot Cap gets when he
loses a game of chess, particularly to Cap Summerville, who rubs it in
on him without mercy.

"Cap looked at the boys in astonishment, and then snapped out: 'Well,
what do you boys want?' 'We've just come in for evening prayers,' says
they, mild as skimmed milk. 'Evening what?' roared the Cap. 'Evening
prayers,' says they. 'Don't you have family devotion every evening?
Cap Summerville couldn't hold in any longer, and just roared, and the
fellers outside, who'd had their ears against the canvas listening to
every word, they roared too. Cap was madder'n a July hornet, and cussed
till the ridgepole shook. Then he took the two boys by the ears and
marched 'em out and says: 'You two brats go back to your tents and stay
there. When I want you to come to my tent I'll send for you, and you'll
wish I hadn't. You'll do praying enough if you're on hand when the
church call's sounded. You'll be mightily different from the rest of my
company if you don't prefer going on guard to church. Get, now!'"

"Now the Captain oughtn't to say that about the company," protested Si.
"I for one go to church every chance I get."

"O, yes, you do," sneered the Orderly-Sergeant. "Who was it, I'd like
to know, that sent word back to the boys in the rear to steal the
Chaplain's horse, and keep him hid for a day or two so's he couldn't
get up and hold services, because you boys wanted to go fishing in the
Tennessee River?"

"Yes, I did," Si confessed; "but it was because the boys begged me to.
We'd just got there, and it looked as if the biting was good, and we
probably wouldn't stay there longer'n over Sunday."

"Well, I ain't done yet," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "That little
snipe, Pete Skidmore--"

"Good gracious, he wasn't lost again, was he?" gasped Si.

"That's just what he was, the little runt, and we had the devil's own
time finding him. What in Sam Hill did the Captain take him for, I'd
like to know? Co. Q aint no nursery. Well, the bugler up at Brigade
Headquarters blowed some sort of a call, and Skidmore wanted to know
what it meant. They told him that it was an order f