right ahead."
She followed this up with a ringing whoopee, which made the tumbledown
cabin suddenly swarm with animation. A legion of loud-mouthed dogs
charged down toward the road. Children of various ages, but of no
variety in their rags and unkempt wildness, followed the dogs, or
perched upon the fence-corners and stumps, and three or four shambling,
evil-faced mountaineers lunged forward, guns in hand, with eyes fiercer
than the dogs, as they looked over the two armed soldiers.

"They'uns is all right, boys," exclaimed the woman. "They'uns 's plum
sick o' doggin' hit for Abe Lincoln an' quit."

"Let 'em gin up thar guns, then," said the foremost man, who had but
one eye, reaching for Shorty's musket. "I'll take this one. I've been
longin' for a good Yankee gun for a plum month to reach them Yankee
pickets on Duck River."

Though Shorty and Si had schooled themselves in the part they were
to play, the repugnant thought of giving up their arms to the rebels
threatened to overset everything. Instinctively they threw up their guns
to knock over the impudent guerrillas. The woman strode between them and
the others, and caught hold of their muskets.

"Don't be fools. Let 'em have your guns," she said, and she caught Si's
with such quick unexpectedness that she wrenched it from his grasp and
flung{202} it to the man who wanted Shorty's. She threw one arm around
Shorty's neck, with a hug so muscular that his breath failed, and she
wrenched his gun away. She kept this in her hand, however.

"Now, I want these 'ere men treated right," she announced to the others,
"and I'm a-gwine to have 'em treated right, or I'll bust somebody's
skillet. They'uns is my takings, and I'm a-gwine to have all the say
'bout 'em. I've never interfered with any Yankees any o' yo'uns have
brung in. Yo've done with them as you pleased, an' I'm a-gwine to do
with these jest as I please, and yo'uns that don't like hit kin jest
lump hit, that's all."

[Illustration: TAKE YOUR ARM FROM AROUND THAT YANK'S NECK 203]

"'Frony Bolster, I want yo' to take yo'r arms from around that Yank's
neck," said the man who had tried to take Shorty's gun. "I won't 'low
yo' to put yo'r arm 'round another man's neck as long's I'm alive to
stop it."

"Ye won't, Jeff Hackberry," she sneered. "Jealous, air ye? You've got no
bizniss o' bein'. Done tole ye 'long ago I'd never marry yo', so long
as I could find a man who has two good eyes and a 'spectable character.
I'