the sutler's remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army
wagons over all right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to
a sutler.

The fire of long-watched-for vengeance gleamed in Al's eye as he made
out its character in the dim light. It reached the center of the stream,
when over it went in the rushing current of muddy water.

Al and Jesse busied themselves unhooking the struggling mules.

The Colonel raged. "Lave it there! Lave it there!" he yelled after
exhausting his plentiful stock of Irish expletives. "But we must lave a
guard with it. Capt. Sidney Hyde, your company has been doing less
than any other. Detail a Sergeant and 10 men to stand guard here until
tomorrow, and put them two thick-headed oudmahouns in the creek on guard
with them. Make them stand double tricks.

"All right. It was worth it," said Al Klapp, as the Sergeant put him on
post, with the water running in rivulets from his clothes. "It'll take
a whole lot of skinning for the sutlers to get even for the dose I've
given one of them."

"B'yes, yoi've done just splendid," said the Colonel, coming over to
where Si and Shorty were sitting wringing the water and mud from their
pantaloons and blouses. "You're hayroes, both of yez. Take a wee drap
from my canteen. It'll kape yez from catching cold."

"No, thankee, Kurnel," said Si, blushing with delight, and forgetting
his fatigue and discomfort, in this condescension and praise from his
commanding officer. "I'm a Good Templar."

"Sinsible b'y," said the Colonel approvingly, and handing his canteen to
Shorty.

"I'm mightily afraid of catching cold," said Shorty, reaching eagerly
for the canteen, and modestly turning his back on the Colonel that he
might not see how deep his draft.

"Should think you were," mused the Colonel, hefting the lightened
vessel. "Bugler, sound the assembly and let's get back to camp."

The next day the number of rusty muskets, dilapidated accouterments
and quantity of soiled clothes in the camp of the 200th Ind. was only
equaled by the number of unutterably weary and disgusted boys.

CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF SONG

HOME-SICKNESS AND ITS OUTPOURING IN MUSIC.

IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville.
For some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the
brigade had been for nearly a week in camp on the banks of the swift
running Cumberland. They had been bright, sunshiny days, the last two of
them