your duty. You can't
help if you do go. I'll go alone. I'll tell you what you might do,
though. You might go over there to the left and fire on 'em, as if{246}
we wuz feelin' around that way. That'll draw some o' their attention."

Si did as suggested.

Shorty crept back to the point they had before occupied. The rebels saw
him coming over a httle knoll, and fired at him. He ran for the fence.
He looked over at the road, and thought he saw the blouse lying in the
ditch on the opposite side. He sprang over the fence and ran across the
road. The rebels had anticipated this and sent a volley into the road.
One bullet struck a small stone, which flew up and smote Shorty's cheek
so sharply that he reeled. But he went on across, picked up the blouse,
found the dear letter, and deliberately stopped in the road until he
transferred it to the breast of his shirt. Then he sprang back over
the fence, and stopped there a moment to rest. He could hear the rebel
Captain talking to his men, and every moment the accents of the voice
became more familiar.

"Don't vaste your shods," he was saying. "Don'd vire undil you sees
somedings to shood ad, unt den vire to hid. See how many shods you haf
alretty vired mitout doing no goot. You must dink dat ammunition's as
blenty as vater in de Southern Confederacy. If you hat as much druble as
I haf to ket cartridges you vould pe more garcful of dem."

Capt. Littles was Rosenbaum, the Jew spy, masquerading in a new role.
Shorty's heart leaped. Instantly he thought of a way to let Rosenbaum
know whom he had run up against.

"Corporal Si Klogg!" he called out in his loudest tones.

"What is it, Shorty?" answered the wondering Si.{247}

"Don't let any more o' the boys shoot over there to the left. That's the
way Capt. McGillicuddy's a-comin' in with Co. Q. I think I kin see him
now jest raisin' the hill. Yes, I'm sure it's him."

The next instant he heard the rebel Captain saying to his men:

"Boys, dey're goming up in our rear. Dey're de men ve saw a liddle vhile
ago. De only vay is to mount unt make a rush past de house. All mount
unt vollow me as vast as dey gan."

There was a gallop of horsemen up the road, and they passed by like the
wind, while Si and Shorty fired as fast as they could load--Shorty over
their heads. Si at the noise. Just opposite the house the Captain's
horse stumbled, and his rider went over his head into a bank of weeds.
The rest swept on, not heeding the mishap.