id Shorty, giving him a
cuff in bitter remembrance of his own smarting feet.

"If we're goin' to shoot him, let's do it right off," said Si, looking
at the cap on his gun. "The company's gittin' ready to start back."

"All right," said Shorty, with cheerful alacrity. "Johnny, your ticket
for a brimstone supper's made out. How'd you rather be shot--standin' or
kneelin'?"

"O, gentlemen, don't kill be. Ye hadn't orter. Why do ye pick me out
to kill? I wuzzent no wuss'n the others. I wuzzent rayly half ez bad. I
didn't rayly mean t' harm ye. I only talked. I had t' talk that-a-way,
for I alluz was a Union man, and had t' make a show for the others. I
don't want t' be shot at all."

"You ain't answerin' my question," said Shorty coolly and inexorably. "I
asked you how you preferred to be shot. These other things you mention
hain't nothin' to do with my question."

He leveled his gun at the unhappy man and took a deliberate sight.

"O, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't shoot me down like a dog,"
screamed Bushrod. "Le'me have a chance to pray, an' make my peace with
my Maker."

"All right," conceded Shorty, "go and kneel down there by that
cottonwood, and do the fastest prayin* you ever did in all your
born days, for you have need of it. We'll shoot when I count
three. You'd{121} better make a clean breast of all your sins and
transgressions before you go. You'll git a cooler place in the camp down
below."

Unseen, the rest of Co. Q were peeping through the bushes and enjoying
the scene.

Bushrod knelt down with his face toward the Cottonwood, and began an
agonized prayer, mingled with confessions of crimes and malefactions,
some flagrant, some which brought a grin of amusement to the faces of
Co. Q.

"One!" called out Shorty in stentorian tones.

"O, for the love o' God, Mister, don't shoot me," yelled Bushrod,
whirling around, with uplifted arms. "I'm too wicked to die, an' I've
got a fambly dependin' on me."

"Turn around there, and finish your prayin'," sternly commanded Shorty,
with his and Si's faces down to the stocks of their muskets, in the act
of taking deliberate aim.

Bushrod flopped around, threw increased vehemence into his prayer, and
resumed his recital of his misdeeds.

"Two!" counted Shorty.

Again Bushrod whirled around with uplifted hands and begged for mercy.

"Nary mercy," said Shorty. "You wouldn't give it to us, and you hain't
given it to many others, according to your own accou