"You'll come through all right," said the Surgeon smiling. "You're the right kind to live. You've got grit. I'll look at your partner now."The Colonel ordered Si to bring his prisoner back into a gully some distance behind the line, where he could be interrogated without the sound reaching the men in the works.
ONE:Norma nodded at the intercom speaker. "That's right. Anything's possibleyou know what she's like."
TWO:"I'm Corp'l Elliott, sir, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."The sound of rushing feet was heard, and a man armed with a shot-gun came into the plane of light from the open caboose door. Shorty was on the lookout for him, and as he appeared, shouted;
TWO:The door opened. A slim, blonde girl stood by it, her mouth still grinning. "Cendar, I mean it," she said. "You watch out. One of these days you're going to get into trouble."
TWO:"Gewhillikins," murmured Jim Humphreys, "I wonder when we're going to have supper. I'm as holler as a stovepipe.""How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"
TWO:"Halt, there! drop that gun. If you move I'll kill this whelp here and then you.""Think nothing of it," the girl said. "Anyhow, we're not in any trouble, and we would have been by now, if you see what I mean."
The girl smiled, and Dodd saw for the first time that she hadn't been smiling before. Her face, in repose, was light enough and to spare; when she smiled, he wanted smoked glasses. "Very well," she said. "My name is Fredericks. Norma Fredericks. And yours is""O, my, do we have to fight all them?" whimpered little Pete, scared as much by the look on Shorty's face as at the array.The two remaining chickens were stowed in a haversack, and during the day hung outside from the ridge-pole of the crib, where they were constantly under the eye of either the Deacon or Shorty, who took turns watching them. That night the Deacon slept with them under his head, though they were beginning to turn a little, and their increasing gameness brought a still larger herd of dogs about. But the Deacon had securely fastened the door, and he let them rage around as they pleased.