rters.

"What's the matter with you, Shorty? Why don't you come in to supper?"
called out Si. "It's a mighty good square meal. Come on in."

"Can't do it. Don't want no supper. Ain't hungry. Got business
out here," answered Shorty, who had gotten one of his rare fits of
considering himself a martyr.

"Nonsense," said Si. "Put your gun in the stack and come in. It's a
bully supper. Best we've had for a year."

"Well, eat it, then," answered Shorty crustily. "I've got something more
important to think of than good suppers."

"O, rats! It's as safe in there as out here. Set your gun down and come
on in."

"This gun shall not leave my side till we're home," said Shorty in a
tone that would have become the Roman sentinel at Pompeii.

"O, I forgot," said Si. "Well, bring it in with you."

"Can't do it. Strictly agin orders to take any guns inside. But leave me
alone. Go back and finish your gorge. I kin manage to hold out somehow,"
answered Shorty in a tone of deep resignation that made Si want to box
his ears.

"That's too bad. But I'll tell you what we can do. I've had a purty good
feed already enough to last me to Looeyville. Let me take your gun. I'll
carry it while you go in and fill up. We hain't much time left."

The fragrance of the coffee, the smell of the fried ham smote Shorty's
olfactories with almost irresistible force. He wavered just a little--.

"Si, I'd trust you as I would no other man in Co. Q or the regiment.
I'll--"

Then his Spartan virtue reasserted itself:

"No, Si; you're too young and skittish. You mean well, but you have
spells, when--"

"Fall in, men," said Lieut. Bowersox, bustling out from a good meal in
the officers' room. "Fall in promptly. We must hurry up to catch the
Looeyville train."

The car for Louisville was filled with characters as to whom there was
entirely too much ground for fear--gamblers, "skin-game" men, thieves,
and all the human vermin that hang around the rear of a great army.
Neither of the boys allowed themselves a wink of sleep, but sat bolt
upright the entire night, watching everyone with steady, stern eyes.
They recognized all the rascals they had seen "running games" around
the camps at Murfreesboro, and who had been time and again chased out of
camp even the whisky seller with whom Si's father had the adventure.
The Provost-Guard had been making one of its periodical cleaning-ups of
Nashville, and driving out the obnoxious characters. Several of
the