This increased the burning impatience of the boys to get where they could be of service. But it was far into the night when they finally skirted the frowning palisades of Lookout Mountain, and went into bivouac on the banks of Chattanooga Creek. All of the squad wanted guns, and Si and Shorty had been desperately anxious to get them for them.
"I'll tell you what you might do," he said at length, "if you care to take the risk. We're goin' back with some teams to Bridgeport to-morrow mornin'. You might git in one of the wagons and ride back 10 or 15 miles to a little valley that I remember that's there, and which I think looks like it hain't bin foraged. I was thinkin' as we come through the other day that I might git something goo'd to eat up there, and I'd try it some day. No body seems to 've noticed it yit. But it may be chock full o' rebels, for all I know, and a feller git jumped the moment he sets foot in it."
FORE:THERE were the same perplexing sounds of battle in many places and directions when the 200th Ind. went into line as there had been around Buzzard Roost.MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.
He stood for a few minutes and looked at the grand display until the union batteries, satisfied that they had finally quashed the impudent rebel, ceased firing, and then he looked around.He racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. There was a halo of unapproachableness about Maria Klegg that paralyzed him."Hello, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler."Wait a little," said Si. "We'll get the boys together, issue 'em catridges and give 'em a little preparation for a light, if we're to have one."