trains, with noisy locomotives and shouting men. Regiments
returning from veteran furlough, or entirely new ones, were disembarking
with loud cheering, which was answered from the camps on the hillsides.
On the river front steamboats were whistling and clanging their bells.

The boys, too much awed for speech, clustered around Si and Shorty and
cast anxious glances at their faces.

"Great Jehosephat," murmured Shorty. "They seem to be all here."

"No," answered Si, as the cheers of a newly-arrived regiment rang out,
"the back townships are still comin' in."

Monty Scruggs found tongue enough to quote:

"And ships by thousands lay below,
And men by nations, all were his."

"Where in time do you s'pose the 200th Injianny is in all this freshet
of men and mules and bosses?" said Si, with an anxious brow. The look
made the boys almost terror-stricken. They huddled together and turned
their glances toward Shorty for hope. But Shorty looked as puzzled as
Si.

"Possibly," he suggested to Si, "the conductor will take us further up
into the town, where we kin find somebody that we know, who'll tell us
where the rijimint is."

"No," said the conductor, who came back at that moment; "I can't go no
further with you. Just got my orders. You must pile right out here at
once. They want the engine and empties in five minutes to take a load
back to Nashville. Git your men out quick as you kin."

"Fall in," commanded Si. "Single rank. Foller me and Corpril Elliott.
Keep well closed up, for if you git separated from us goodness knows
what'll become o' you in this raft o' men."

The passage through the crowded, busy railroad yard was bewildering,
toilsome, exciting and dangerous. The space between the tracks was
scarcely more than wide enough for one man to pass, and the trains on
either side would be moving in different directions. On the tracks
that the boys crossed trains were going ahead or backing in entire
regardlessness of them, and with many profane yells from the trainmen
for them to get out of the way and keep out. Si only kept his direction
by occasionally glancing over his shoulder and setting his face to
walk in the direction away from Pulpit Rock, which juts out from the
extremity of Lookout Mountain.

At last, after a series of hair-breadth dodges, Si drew up his squad in
an open space where the tracks crossed, and proceeded to count them.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Si Klegg, Boo