smiling. "You're the
right kind to live. You've got grit. I'll look at your partner now."

He went to Si and examined him. Shorty turned on his side and watched
him with eager eyes. His heart sickened as he saw the Surgeon's face
grow graver as he proceeded. The Surgeon probed the bullet's track with
his fingers, and drew out a piece of folded letter paper stained with
blood. Instinctively he unfolded it, and read through the ensanguined
smears, written in a cramped school-girl hand:

"Dear Si: Though I did not have the heart to say it, Ime
yours till death, and Ime sure you feel the same way.
Annabel."

"I'm much afraid the end has come too soon to a brave as well as loving
heart," said the Surgeon sadly.

"Doctor, he can't die. He mustn't die," said Shorty in agony. "The
regiment can't spare him. He's the best soldier in it, and he's my
pardner."

"He may live, but it's a very slender chance," said the Surgeon. "Men
live in this war against all science and experience, and it is possible
that he may."

"Major," said Lieut. Bowersox, coming in, "I understand that two of my
men were brought in here wounded. The report which was sent North this
morning gave them as killed. If you have them here I want to correct it
and save their people sorrow."

"One of them," answered the Surgeon, "has no thought of dying, and will,
I'm sure, pull through. I am sorry I cannot say the same for the other.
It he lives it will be a wonder."

"Neither of us is a-going to die till we've put down this damned
rebellion, and got home and married our girls," gasped Shorty with grim
effort. "You can jist telegraph that home, and to ole Abe Lincoln, and
to all whom it may concern."

And he fell back exhausted on his blanket.

CHAPTER XVIII. A DISTURBING MESSAGE

THE DEACON HURRIEDLY LEAVES FOR CHATTANOOGA.

THAT evening Lieut. Bowersox sent a telegram to Deacon Klegg. It had to
be strictly limited to 10 words, and read:

JOSIAH KLEGG, ESQ.,

Somepunkins Station, Ind.:

Josiah not killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded.
E. C. BOWERSOX.

It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's
home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the
multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger, freight and express-agent,
baggage-master, and telegraph operator at Sumpunkins Station laboriously
spelled out the dots and dashes on the paper strip in the instrument.
H