nt. Your light's
flickerin', and we'll blow it out at the next count. Turn around,
there."

Bushrod made the woods ring this time with his fervent, tearful appeals
to the Throne of Grace. He was so wrought up by his impending death
that he{122} did not hear Co. Q quietly move away, at a sign from
the Captain, with Si and Shorty mounting their horses and riding off
noiselessly over the sod.

For long minutes Bushrod continued his impassioned appeals at the top
of his voice, expecting every instant to have the Yankee bullets
crash through his brain. At length he had to stop from lack of breath.
Everything was very quiet--deathly so, it seemed to him. He stole a
furtive glance around. No Yankees could be seen out of the tail of his
eye on either side. Then he looked squarely around. None was visible
anywhere. He jumped up, began cursing savagely, ran into the road, and
started for home. He had gone but a few steps when he came squarely in
front of the musket of the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q, who had placed
himself in concealment to see the end of the play and bring him along.

"Halt, there," commanded the Orderly-Sergeant; "face the other way and
trot. We must catch up with the company."

Si and Shorty felt that they had redeemed themselves, and returned to
camp in such good humor with each other, and everybody else, that they
forgot that their feet were almost as bad as ever.

They went into the house and began cooking their supper together again.
Shorty picked up the coffeecan and said:

"Si Klegg, you're a gentleman all through, if you was born on the
Wabash. A genuine gentleman is knowed by his never bein' no hog under no
circumstances. I watched you when you looked into this coffee-can, and
mad as I was at you, I said you was a thorobred when you left it all to
me."

{123}

CHAPTER IX. SHORTY GETS A LETTER

BECOMES ENTANGLED IN A HIGHLY IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE.

A LIGHT spring wagon, inscribed "United States Sanitary Commission,"
drove through the camp of the 200th Ind., under the charge of a
dignified man with a clerical cast of countenance, who walked alongside,
looking at the soldiers and into the tents, and stopping from time
to time to hand a can of condensed milk to this one, a jar of jam to
another, and bunches of tracts to whomsoever would take them.

Shorty was sitting in front of the house bathing his aching feet.
The man stopped before him, and looked compassionately at his swollen
pedal