onished the barber.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" pleaded the Deacon, awkwardly saluting.

"Stand back; I'll attend to you next," said the{228} Lieutenant
impatiently. "Now, tie his hands behind him."

The Lieutenant turned toward the Deacon, and the barber picked up his
shears and made a step in that direction. Just in the extremity of his
danger the Deacon caught sight of the Captain of Co. Q walking toward
Headquarters.

"Capt. McGillicuddy! Capt. McGillicuddy! come here at once! Come quick!"
he called in a voice which had been trained to long-distance work on the
Wabash bottoms.

Capt. McGillicuddy looked up, recognized the waving of the Deacon's
bandanna, and hastened thither. Fortunately he knew the Provost
officers; there were explanations all around, and profuse apologies,
and just as the fifes and drums struck up the "Rogue's March" behind the
luckless storekeeper, who had to step off in front of a line of leveled
bayonets, the Deacon walked away arm-in-arm with the Captain.

"I'm not goin' to let go o' you till I'm safe back in our own place," he
said. "My gracious! think of havin' my head shaved and marched off the
way that feller's bein'."

He walked into the cabin and stirred up the beans.

"The water's biled off," said he to himself, "but they hain't been in
nigh as hot a place as I have. I guess the boys'll have to do with a
plain dinner to day. I'm not goin' to stir out o' this place agin unless
they're with me."

He put his hand into his pocket for his bandanna and felt the roll of
bills, which he had altogether forgotten in his excitement.

His face was a study.

CHAPTER XIX. THE DEACON IS TROUBLED

DISPOSES OF THE $500 "WHISKY" MONEY AND GOES OUT FORAGING.

FROM the door of the cabin the Deacon could see the fort on which the
boys were piling up endless cubic yards of the red soil of Tennessee. As
he watched them, with an occasional glance at the beans seething in the
kettle, fond memories rose of a woman far away on the Wabash, who these
many years had thought and labored for his comfort in their home, while
he labored within her sight on their farm. It was the first time in
their long married life that he had been away from her for such a length
of time.

"I believe I'm gittin' real homesick to see Mariar," he said with a
sigh. "I'd give a good deal for a letter from her. I do hope everything
on the farm's all right. I think it is. I'm a little worried about Brown
Susy, the mare,