if you make a
move agin me I'll surely blow your head off en you, an' jab my bayonet
through the next man. My partner, Shorty, is a worse man than I am, an'
I can't tell how many of you he'll kill. He's awful quick-tempered,
too, towards evening, an' liable to begin shooting any minute without
warnin'. It'll save several lives if you start right off on the jump,
straight toward the rear, an' keep it up, with out looking to the right
or left, until you reach Co. Q. You'll find the trail we made comin' in.
Take it this minute."

The rebel Sergeant's eyes looked directly into the dark muzzle of Si's
gun. They glanced along the barrel, and met one eye looking directly
through the sights, while the other was closed, in the act of taking
deliberate aim. He decided with great promptness that there were many
reasons why he should prefer to be a live rebel in a Yankee prison,
rather than a badly-disfigured dead one in a lonely cedar thicket. He
dropped his club, turned around, and made his way along the path over
which Si had come. The rest followed, with Si and Shorty a few paces in
the rear.

Palpitating with pride, Si marched his prisoners up to the company,
who gave him three cheers. The Captain ordered him to report with his
prisoners to the Colonel.

[Illustration: SI REPORTS TO THE COLONEL 38]

The Colonel praised him with words that made his blood tingle.{40}

The skirmishing off to the right had now ceased. The rebels had fallen
back to the next hilltop, and the 200th Ind. was ordered to go into camp
where it stood.

[Illustration: PREPARING SUPPER 40]

It was a fine place for a camp. The mud of the day before was frozen
into stony hardness. The wagons had no difficulty in coming up. There
was wood and water in abundance, and it seemed that the command "Break
ranks March!" had hardly been uttered when great, bright, comfort-giving
fires of fragrant cedar rails flashed up all along the line.

Si and Shorty found several cedar stumps and logs, which they rolled
together, and made a splendid fire. They cooked themselves an ample
supper of fried pork, toasted hardtack, and strong, fragrant coffee,
which they devoured with an appetite and a keen enjoyment only possible
to healthy young men who have had a day of active manuvering and
marching in the crisp, chill air of December.

Then they gathered a lot of cedar branches, and made a thick mattress of
them near the fire, upon which to spread their blankets for the