with a coating nearly an inch thick.

"What in the world do you mean by that, Shorty?" asked the Deacon in
surprise.

"He's all right. Pap," assured Si. "He'll show you a new wrinkle in
chicken-fixin' that you kin teach mother when you go home. She knows
more about cookin' than any other woman in the world, but I'll bet she's
not up to this dodge."

The fire had by this time burned down to a heap of glowing embers. The
boys scraped a hole in these, laid on it their two balls of mud, then
carefully covered them with live coals and piled on a little more wood.

"I'll say right now," said the Deacon, "that I don't think much o' that
way. Why didn't you take their feathers off and clean out their innards?
Seems to me that's a nasty way."

"Wait and see," said Shorty sententiously.

Si had mixed some meal into a dough in the half-canteens he and
Shorty carried in their haversacks. He spread this out on a piece of
sheet-iron, and propped it up before the fire. In a little while it was
nicely browned over, when Si removed it from the sheet-iron, turned
it over, and browned the other side. He repeated this until he had
a sufficiency of{18} "hoe cakes" for their supper. A kettle of good,
strong coffee had been boiling on the other side of the fire while this
was going on. Then they carefully raked the embers off, and rolled out
two balls of hard-baked clay. Waiting for these to cool a little, they
broke them. The skin and feathers came off with the pieces and revealed
deliciously savory, sweet meat, roasted just to a turn. The intestines
had shriveled up with the heat into little, hard balls, which were
thrown away.

"Yum--yum--yum," said Shorty, tearing one of the chickens in two, and
handing a piece to the Deacon, while Si gave him a sweet, crisp hoe cake
and a cup of strong coffee. "Now, this's what you might call livin'.
Never beat that cookin' in any house that had a roof. Only do that when
you've stars in the roof of your kitchen."

"It certainly is splendid," admitted the Deacon. "I don't think Maria
could've done better."

It was yet light when they finished their supper, filled their pipes,
and adjusted themselves for a comfortable smoke. One of the men came
back and said:

"Corporal, there's a rebel on horseback down the road a little ways who
seems to be spying on us. We've noticed him for some little time. He
don't come up in good range, and we haven't fired at him, hopin' he'd
come closer. Better come a