run away? I'm goin to run away myself some day. I'm awful tired o'
havin' to git up in the mornin', wash my face and comb my hair, and do
the chores, and kneel down at family prayers, and go to Sunday, school,
and stay through church, and then have to spell out a chapter in the
Bible in the afternoon. I'm goin' to run away, and be a soldier, or go
out on the plains and kill Injuns. I'm layin' away things now for it.
See here?"

And he conducted Shorty with much mystery to a place behind the haymow,
where he had secreted an old single-barreled pistol and a falseface.

"You little brat," said Shorty, "git all them fool notions out o' your
head. This 's the best home you'll ever see, and you stay here just as
long as the Lord'll let you. You're playin' in high luck to be here.
Don't you ever leave, on no account."

"Then why're you goin' to run away," asked the boy wonderingly.

"That's my business. Something you can't understand, nohow. Now, I want
you to slip around there and git my overcoat and things and bring 'em
out to me, without nobody seein' you. Do it at once."

[Illustration: "SAMMY," SAID SHORTY, "I'M GOIN' AWAY RIGHT OFF, AND I
DON'T WANT THE PEOPLE TO KNOW NOTHIN' OF IT." 113]

While Sammy was gone for the things Shorty laboriously wrote out a note
to Si upon a sheet of brown paper. It read:

"Deer Si; ive jest red in the papers that the army's goin' 2
move rite off. i no tha need me bad in the kumpany, for tha
are short on Korprils, & tha can't do nothin' without
Korprils. ive jest time 2 ketch the nekst traine, & ime
goin' thare ez fast ez steme kin carry me. Good-by & luv 2
all the folks.

"Yours, Shorty."

"There, Sammy," he said, as he folded it up and gave it to the boy;
"keep that quiet until about bed time, when they begin to inquire about
me. By that time I'll 've ketched the train goin' east, and be skippin'
out for the army. By the way, Sammy, can't you sneak into Miss Maria's
room, and steal a piece o' ribbon, or something that belongs to her?"

"I've got a big piece o' that new red Sunday dress o' her's," said
Sammy, going to his storehouse and producing it. "I cribbed it once, to
make me a flag or something, when I'd be out fightin' the Injuns. Will
that do you?"

"Bully," said Shorty, with the first joyous emotion since the reception
of the letter. "It's jest the thing. Here's a half-dollar for you. Now,
Sammy, kin you write?"

"They're makin'