hat I had been on my nerve until my nerves were
pretty near used up, and I asked him if he couldn't let some of the
other boys do a little of the nervous work. He said he had one more
woman job that he would like to have me undertake.

I was sick of the whole woman business, and told him I did not want to
be aggravated any more; that arresting women and searching them, was
nothing but an aggravation, and I wanted to be let out. He said in this
case I would not have to arrest anybody of the female persuasion, but
that I would have to be arrested, and that it would be the greatest joke
that ever was. I told him if there was any joke about it he could count
me in. Then he went on to say that my success with the female smuggler
had excited all the boys to emulate my deeds, and they were all laying
for a female smuggler, and that he feared it wouldn't be safe for a
woman to be caught on the picket line. There had got to be a stop put to
it, and he and the general had thought of a scheme. He said there was
a corporal in one of the companies who had made his brags that he would
arrest the first female that came to his picket post, and search her for
smuggled goods, and they wanted to make an example of him. He asked me
if I wasn't something of a boxer, and I told him for a light weight I
was considered pretty good. Then he asked me if I could ride on a side
saddle. I told him I could ride anything, from a hobby to an elephant.
He said that was all right, and I would fill the bill. Then he went
into details. I was to go to the town with him, and be fitted out with
a riding habit of the female persuasion, false hair, side saddle, and
a bustle as big as a bushel basket. That I was to ride out on a certain
road, where the corporal would be on picket with two men. He would stop
me, and search me, I was to cry, and beg, and all that, but finally
submit to be searched, and after the corporal had got started to search
me, I was to haul off and give him one "biff" in the nose, another if it
was necessary to knock him down, paste one of the men in the ear, if he
showed any impudence, jump on my horse and come back to town, and leave
the corporal to find his mistake.

I didn't half like the idea of dressing up in such a masquering
costume, but of course if I could help put down the rebellion that
way, it was my duty to do it, and besides, I had a grudge against that
corporal, anyway, because he called me a "jay" and a "substitute," and