n the branches,
lay their blankets and ponchos over, and crawl in between.

In the few minutes which they allowed to elapse between getting into
camp and going to sleep they saw and heard something of the preparations
going on around them for the mighty battle, but body and brain were too
weary to properly "sense" these. They hardly cared what might happen
to-morrow. Rest for to-day was everything. They were too weary to worry
about anything in the future.

"It certainly looks, Shorty," said Si, as he crawled in, "like as if
the circus was in town, and the big show'd come off to-morrow, without
regard to the{68} weather."

"Let it come and be blamed to it," snorted Shorty. "They can't git up
nothin' wuss'n we've bin havin' to-day, let them try their durndest. But
I tell you, Mr. Si Klegg, I want you to lay mighty still to-night. If
you git to rollin' around in your usual animated style and tanglin'
up the bedclothes, I'll kick you out into the rain, and make you stay
there. Do you hear me?"

"You bet I'll lay quiet," said Si, as together they gave the skillful
little kick only known to veteran campaigners by which they brought
the blankets snugly up around their feet. "You could sooner wake up a
fence-rail than me. I want to tell you, too, not to git to dreamin' of
pryin' wagons out of the mud, and chasin' rebel cavalry. I won't have
it."

The reveille the next morning would have promptly awakened even more
tired sleepers than Si and Shorty. Even before the dull, damp drums
began rolling and the fifes shrieking the air of enforced gaiety along
the sinuous line of blue which stretched for miles through red, muddy
cottonfields and cedar tangles wet as bath-room sponges, there came from
far away on the extreme right a deepening roll of musketry, punctuated
with angry cannon-shots and the faint echo of yells and answering
cheers.

"That's McCook opening the battle," said the officers, answering the
anxious looks of the men. "He's to hold the rebels out there, while
Crittenden sweeps around on the left, captures Murfreesboro, and takes
them in the rear."

Miles away to the left came the sound of musketry and cannons, as if to
confirm this. But the firing there died down, while that to the right
increased{69} with regular, crashing volleys from muskets and artillery.

The 200th Ind. was in that exceedingly trying position for soldiers,
where they can hear everything but see nothing. The cedar thicket in
which they