started with the rest to the
supper-room.

"Here, Injianny," called out the Sergeant, "stack your gun here with the
rest."

"Don't want to ain't goin' to," answered Shorty.

"What's the reason you ain't?" asked the Sergeant, catching hold of
the gun. "Nobody's going to take it, and if they did, you can pick up
another. Plenty of 'em, jest as good as that, all around here."

"Don't care. This is my own gun. I think more of it than any gun ever
made, and I ain't goin' to take any chance of losin' it."

"Well, then, you'll take a chance of losing your supper," answered the
Sergeant, "or rather you'll be certain of it, for the orders are strict
against taking guns into the supper-room. Too many accidents have
happened."

"Well, then," said Shorty stoutly, "I'll do without my supper, though
I'm hungrier than a wolf at the end of a long Winter."

"Well, if you're so infernal pig-headed, you've got to," answered the
Sergeant, nettled at Shorty's obstinacy. "Go back beyond the gunstack,
and stay there. Don't you come nearer the door than the other side of
the stack."

Shorty's dander rose up at once. At any other time he would have
conclusions with the Sergeant then and there. But the remembrance of his
charge laid a repressive hand upon his quick choler, and reminded him
that any kind of a row would probably mean a night in the guard-house,
his gun in some other man's hands, probably lost forever, and so on. He
decided to defer thrashing the Sergeant until his return, when he would
give it to him with interest. He shouldered his gun, paced up and down,
watching with watering mouth the rest luxuriating in a hot supper with
fragrant coffee and appetizing viands, to which his mouth had been
a stranger for many long months. It cost a severe struggle, but he
triumphed.

Si, in his own hungry eagerness, had not missed him, until his own
appetite began to be appeased by the vigorous onslaught he made on the
eatables. Then he looked around for his partner, and was horrified not
to find him by his side.

"Where's Shorty," he anxiously inquired.

Each looked at the other in surprise, and asked:

"Why, ain't he here?"

"No, confound it; he ain't here," said Si, excitedly springing to his
feet; "he has been knocked down and robbed."

Si bolted out, followed by the rest. They saw Shorty marching up and
down as a sentinel sternly military, and holding his Springfield as
rigidly correct as if in front of the Colonel's qua