"O," said Si, "we've bin hearin' about this Copperhead lodge for some time, and some of us boys who's home on furlough thought that we'd come down here with the Deputy Provo and bust it up. We've bin plannin' it a week or two. All these that you see, there are soldiers. I've 15, includin' myself."
ONE:"I shaking?" said Gib, with deep anger. "Now, Harry Josyn""O, there are two or three men around here that I kin sell 'em to for big money. I ought to make a clean thousand off 'em if I make a cent."
TWO:"Humph," said the woman. "He's run acrost Stevenson's old boar, that runs in them woods up thar, and is mouty savage this time o' year. He'd take a laig offen a youngster quicker'n scat, if he ketched him. He done well to run."
TWO:"Sergeant," commanded the Aid, reaching to take the field-glasses from Shorty's hand; "buck and gag that man at once. Knock him down if he resists. Knock him down, I say."Si, unable to think of anything better, went with him. The train had stopped on a switch, and seemed likely to rust fast to the rails, from the way other trains were going by in both directions. The bridge gang, under charge of a burly, red-faced young Englishman, was in the rear car, with their tools, equipments, bedding and cooking utensils.
"Mister Billings," said he, sternly, "what was the General's orders about wearin' anything military?"MRS. B.: How can you be sure of a thing like that? But I want mi Gunn!"Colonel," said Shorty's voice out of the darkness, "I've brung you one o' the rebel scouts that was piroutin' out there. I don't know as you kin make much out o' him, though, for the welt I fetched him with my gun bar'l seems to've throwed his thinkery out o' gear, and he can't talk straight.""I guess so," Albin said. "History's not my field. Butgiven the setup, what else could there be? What other choice have you got?"