THREE:"I think we ought to holler some. Makes it livelier. What sort o' guns has the guerrillas?"

THREE:"Judge-Advocate," said Maj. Truax, "when the General approves this finding, and you communicate it to prisoner, whisper in his ear that if he ever strains us this way again I'll take it upon myself to break his fool neck. Let him look a little out.""Just the same as dress parade every day," answered the Chief Clerk. "Don't want any scarecrows around these Headquarters. We're on dress parade all the time before the people and other soldiers, and must show them how soldiers ought to appear. You'll find a barber-shop and a bootblack around the corner. Make for them at once, and get yourself in shape to represent Headquarters properly."

THREE:THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he was bringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seize mother and daughters at the very sight of the yellow telegraph envelope directed to them. They would interpret it to mean that Si was dead, and probably in their grief fail to open the envelope and read the message. So at Jeffersonville he sent a message to Sol Pringle, the agent and operator at the station. The Deacon remembered the strain the former message had been on the young operator's intelligence, besides he himself was not used to writing messages, and so, regardless of expense, he conveyed his thoughts to Sol in this wise:THE time and the surroundings were such as to bring the spirits of the boys to their lowest ebb.

THREE:"No," Dodd said again. "What did you do before we came?"