"Buggy or spring-wagon," muttered Si with a farmer boy's instinctive interpretation of such sounds. "What's it doin' in camp? Strange horse. In better condition than any around here."There was a frantic scrambling for clothing, which it was impossible for them to find in the pitchy darkness. There were exclamations of boyish ill-temper at their failure. They thought the enemy were right upon them, and every instant was vital. Monty Scruggs and Alf Russell could not wait to dress, but rushed for their guns the first thing, and buckled on their cartridge-boxes.
ONE:Influenced by the example, Shorty thought he ought to write to Maria. He had received a second letter from her the day that he had gone out to the mill, and its words had filled his soul with a gladness that passed speech. The dispassionate reader would not have seen anything in it to justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full of errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these. Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand, secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far from Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the pitch-pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk bandana, and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and Maria's last letter, which he spread out and re-read several times."O, come off," said Si, petulantly. "What's a-eatin you. You don't know them girls as well as I do. Particularly Maria. She'll run right over you if you let her. She's one o' the best girls that ever breathed, but you've got to keep a tight rein on her. The feller that marries her's got to keep the whip-hand or she'll make him wish that he'd never bin born."
TWO:
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ONE:"You mean thing," said Maria, "to steal a march on me this way, when I wanted to be the first to see Si. Where in the world did you come from, and how did you find out he was comin' home on this train? Si, you didn't let her know before you did us, did you?""Great Jehosephat," exploded Shorty; "you kin certainly be the stubbornest mule over nothin', Si Klegg, that I ever seen. We've done fightin' enough to excuse sich a report, or any that we've a mind to make."
TWO:"Gosh, that settles it," groaned Jerry Wilkinson; "that old bull o' the woods 'd rather shoot a man than not. He's always lookin' around for some excuse for sculping a man, and the less he has the savager he is.""Psych, me," she said. "So I'm every bit as responsible as you are. And maybe the reason there's nothing to do isis because it's already been done."
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ONE:"There," said the Deacon, as he finished shearing off the superabundant hair, and surveyed the work. "That ain't as purty a job as if your mother'd done it, but you'll feel lighter and cleaner, and be healthier. If hair was only worth as much as wool is now, I'd have enough to pay me for the job. But I must clean it up keerfully and burn it, that the birds mayn't git hold of it and give you the headache."
TWO:In the rear was the relentless Shorty.
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FORE:"What do you mean, good care of him?" she said. But Albin was gone, into the main body of the party, a melee confused enough so that he was lost in twenty steps. Greta turned back almost hopeless eyes.
FORE:He led the horse to a rock, mounted him, and started up the road. He reached the point where the road to the house turned off, and was debating whether he should go farther or turn the horse loose there, when he saw a company of cavalry coming up the main road from the other directionthat toward Bridgeport. Though they wore blue overcoats, he had learned enough about army life to not trust this implicitly, so he prudently rode into the woods to watch them until he could make sure. The company came up to where the roads parted, and he overheard a man who rode by the Captain at the head, and who wore a semi-soldier costume and seemed to be a scout or guide, tell the Captain:
FORE:
FORE:"Look here. Sergeant," remonstrated Shorty, "I don't belong in that pack o' shell-fever invalids, and I won't fall in with 'em. There's no yaller or cotton in me. I'm straight goods, all wool, and indigodyed. I've bin promoted Corpril in my company for good conduct at Chickamauga. I'm goin' back to my regiment o' my own accord, before my time's up, and I propose to go my own way. I won't go under guard."
FORE:"If I don't what'll you do, you lowlived whelp?" said Billings, in his usual brow-beating manner. "I only let you into this as a favor, because I've knowed you before. You hain't brains enough to make a picayune yourself, and hain't no gratitude when someone else makes it for you. Git out o' here; I'm ashamed to be seen speakin' to a mangy hound like you. Git out o' here before I kick you out. Don't you dare speak to one o' them boys, or ever to me agin. If you do I'll mash you. Git out."
FORE:The fighting had been quite a severe tussle for the soldiers. There had not been much shooting, but a great deal of clubbing with gun-barrels and sticks, which left a good many bloody heads and aching arms and shoulders. About half of those in the meeting had succeeded in getting away, but this still left some 75 prisoners in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow, and he was delighted with his success.
FORE:MRS. GORDON: They've all been talking about it, how those poor things have to work and work until they drop, and they don't even get paid for it or anything.
TWO:All the same, "dreary" was the word for it. (An image of Dr. Haenlingen's frozen face floated into his mind. He pushed it away. It was morning. It was time for work.)
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TWO:"Well, you"If Shorty had been noticing the woman he would have seen her start, but would have attributed it to the lurching of the cars. She lost interest in the chicken leg she was picking, and listened to the continuance of the conversation.
TWO:"Then there is nothing to be done?" Dward asked.
The tone was so harsh and repellant that the Deacon thought that he would disarm hostility by announcing himself a plain citizen, like themselves. So he replied:CHAPTER XV. KEYED UP FOR ACTION
TWO:"Then there is nothing to be done?" Dward asked.
