y groaned, wrapped up the pig again,
and Si mercifully made the two who had waited by the fire carry the
heaviest part.

Si started them back toward the 200th Ind., and he and Shorty walked
along close to them, maintaining a proper provost-guard-like severity of
countenance and carriage.

The men began to try to beg off, and make advances on the basis
of sharing the pork. But Si and Shorty's official integrity was
incorruptible.

"Shut up and go on," they would reply to every proposition. "We ain't
that kind of soldiers. Our duty's to take you to Headquarters, and to
Headquarters you are going."

They threaded through the crowds for some time, and as they were at last
nearing the regiment a battery of artillery went by at as near a trot as
it could get out of the weary horses in that deep mire. The squad took
advantage of the confusion to drop their burden and scurry out of sight
in the throng.

"All right; let 'em go," grinned Si. "I wuz jest wonderin' how we'd get
rid o' 'em. I'd thought o' takin' them into the regiment and then givin'
them a chunk o' their pork, but then I'd get mad at the way they talked
about the 200th Ind. last night, and want to stop and lick 'em. It's
better as it is. We need all that pig for the boys."{101}

Si and Shorty picked up the bundle and carried it up to the regiment.
When they unrolled it the boys gave such lusty cheers that the rebels
beyond the field rushed to arms, expecting a charge, and one of our
impulsive cannoneers let fly a shell at them.

Si and Shorty cut off one ham for themselves and their particular
cronies, carried the other ham, with their compliments, to the Colonel,
and let the rest be divided up among the regiment.

One of their chums was lucky enough to have saved a tin box of salt, and
after they had toasted and devoured large slices of the fresh ham they
began to feel like new men, and be anxious for some thing farther to
happen.

But the gloomy, anxious day dragged its slow length along with nothing
more momentous than fitful bursts of bickering, spiteful firing,
breaking out from time to time on different parts of the long line,
where the men's nerves got wrought up to the point where they had to do
something to get the relief of action.

Away out in front of the regiment ran a little creek, skirting the hill
on which the rebels were massed. In the field between the hill and the
creek was one of our wagons, which had mired there and been abandoned