in the company, over the personality of the fair
stocking-knitter of Wisconsin and the letter he had sent her. He would
try to recall the exact wording of each sentence he had laboriously
penned, and wonder how it impressed her, think how it might have been
improved, and blame himself for not having been more outspoken in his
desire to hear from her again. He would steal off into the brush, pull
out the socks{152} and letter, which he kept carefully wrapped up in
a sheet of the heavy letter paper, and read over the letter carefully
again, although he knew every word of it by heart. These fits alarmed
Si.

"I'm af eared," he confided to some cronies, "that rebel bullet hurt
Shorty more'n he'll let on. He's not actin' like hisself at times. That
bullet scraped so near his thinkery that it may have addled it. It was
an awful close shave."

"Better talk to the Surgeon," said they. "Glancing bullets sometimes
hurt worse'n they seem to."

"No, the bullet didn't hurt Shorty, any more than make a scratch," said
the Surgeon cheerfully when Si laid the case before him. "I examined him
carefully. That fellow's head is so hard that no mere scraping is going
to affect it. You'd have to bore straight through it, and I'd want at
least a six-pounder to do it with if I was going to undertake the job.
An Indiana head may not be particularly fine, but it is sure to be
awfully solid and tough. No; his system's likely to be out of order. You
rapscallions will take no care of yourselves, in spite of all that I can
say, but will eat and drink as if you were ostriches. He's probably
a little off his feed, and a good dose of bluemass followed up with
quinine will bring him around all right. Here, take these, and give them
to him."

The Surgeon was famous for prescribing bluemass and quinine for every
ailment presented to him, from sore feet to "shell fever." Si received
the medicines with a proper show of thankfulness, saluted, and left.
As he passed through the clump if bushes he was tempted to add them to
the{153} collection of little white papers which marked the trail from
the Surgeon's tent, but solicitude for his comrade restrained him. The
Surgeon was probably right, and it was Si's duty to do all that he could
to bring Shorty around again to his normal condition. But how in the
world was he going to get his partner to take the medicine? Shorty had
the resolute antipathy to drugs common to all healthy men.

It was so grave a proble