Even if the things she said, the cold-blooded way she looked at the world, sometimes bothered him...."Yes, I am an officer," said Billings, avoiding Shorty's clutch. "These men are assaultin' me while I'm on duty. I want them arrested and punished."
ONE:"Yes, Major," answered Si, saluting. "And you're Maj. Tomlinson, of the 1st Oshkosh. This is my pardner. Shorty."Billings hurriedly glanced at the papers, and saw that instead of some unpleasant order from the General, which he had feared, they were merely some routine matters. His bullying instinct at once reasserted itself:
THREE:"Well, that story may be true, and it mayn't. Probably it ain't. Men don't get up before daybreak to take back borrowed horses. You're up to some devilment; probably taking information or contraband out to the rebels. I haven't time now to investigate. I'll put you under guard until I have. As for the horse, we've got use for him. McCook's Cavalry needs about a thousand such as he. We're out lookin' for horses now. Unhitch him, boys."
THREE:"They were justhaving fun," Norma said. "There was nothing wrong, nothing at all. You happened to come in at a bad moment, but it didn't mean anything, there wasn't anything going on that should have bothered you....""Brother Walker," said Billings, "there's a tall man settin' close by the door that I seem to've seen before, and yit I don't exactly recognize. Please hold that candle nigh his face till I can see it more plainly."
"Awful nice feller. I thought a heap of him. Thought more of him than any other man in the company. A nicer man you never knowed. Didn't drink, nor swear, nor play cards, nor chaw terbacker. Used to go to church every Sunday. Chaplain thought a heap of him. Used to call him his right bowerI mean his strong suitI mean his two pairace high. No, neither o' them's just the word the Chaplain used, but it was something just as good, but more Bible-like."The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill-stones over an adjacent pond."Yes, boss."
