ng with the children. Lot o' pesky nonsense,
marking up de walls dat a-way.'

"'Looks like very systematic nonsense,' said the Colonel very stern unt
sour. 'There may be something in it. Did you do this?' said he, turning
to me.

"'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I have a bad habit of marking when I'm talking. I
always done it, even when I was a child. My mother used to often slap me
for spoiling the walls, but she could never break me of it.'

"'Humph,' said he, not at all satisfied with my story, unt looking at
the scratches harder than ever. 'Who are you, unt what are you doing
here?'

"I told him my story about buying Mexican silver dollars, unt showed him
a lot of the dollars I'd bought.

"'Your story ain't reasonable,' said he. 'You haven't done bizniss
enough to pay you for all the time you've spent around the army. I'll
put you under guard till I can look into your case.'

"He called to the Sergeant of the Guard, unt ordered him to take charge
of me. The Sergeant was that same dirty loafer. Bob Smiles, that I had
the trouble with by Wilson's Creek. He kicked me unt pounded me, unt put
me on my horse, with my hands tied behind me, unt my feet tied under the
horse's belly. I was almost dead by night, when we reached Headquarters.
They gave me something to{58} eat, unt I laid down on the floor of the
cabin, wishing I was Pontius Pilate, so that I could crucify every man
in the Southern Confedrisy, especially Bob Smiles. An hour or two later
I heard Bob Smiles swearing again."

[Illustration: THE SPY IN CUSTODY. 58]

"'Make out the names of all the prisoners I have,' he was saying, 'with
where they belong unt the charges against them. I can't. Do they take
me for a counter-jumping clerk? I didn't come into the army to be a
white-faced bookkeeper, I sprained{59} my thumb the other day, unt I
can't write even a Httle bit. What am I to do?'

"That was all moonshine about his spraining his thumb. He vas ignorant
as a jackass. If he had 40 thumbs he couldn't write even his own name
so's anybody could read it.

"'I don't believe these's a man in a mile of here that can make out
such a list,' he went on. They're all a set of hominy-eating blockheads.
Perhaps that hook-nosed Jew might. He's the man. I'll make him do it, or
break his swindling head.'

"He come in, kicked me, unt made me get up, unt then took me out unt set
me down at a table, where he had paper, pen unt ink, unt ordered me to
take down the names of the pri