"Yes," continued the incorrigible tease; "and they say the best time to ketch a widder is while her eyes is wet. Transplantin's best in wet weather, and the best time to ketch a feller's jest when he's bin jilted.""An order's come down from Headquarters to detail a Sergeant and eight men from the company to go out about eight or 10 miles in the country, and take a turn guarding a little mill they're running out there, grinding meal. There's a gang of bushwhackers around there, that occasionally pester the men at work and they've tried once to burn the mill. I don't think you'll have much trouble, but you've got to keep your eye peeled, and not let any of your boys go to sleep on post."
ONE:"When I enlisted," Monty confided to Alf Russell, "I thought I'd do my best to become a Captain or a General. Now, I'm dead anxious to be an Orderly-Sarjint."
ONE:Cadnan knew from gossip about the field: that was the place where the metal lay. Alberts worked there, digging it up and bringing it to the buildings where Cadnan and many like him took over the job. He nodded slowly, bending his body from the waist instead of from the neck like the masters, or Marvor. "If you are in the field," he said, "why do you come here? This is not a place for diggers."However, he had come to get some comprehension of the lay of the ground and the movements of the trains by this time, and by careful watching succeeded in gathering in his boys, one after another, until he had them all but little Pete Skidmore. The opinion grew among them that Pete had unwisely tried to keep up with the bigger boys, who had jumped across the track in front of a locomotive, and had been caught and crushed beneath the wheels. He had been seen up to a certain time, and then those who were last with him had been so busy getting out of the way that they had forgotten to look for him. Si calmed Shorty down enough to get him to forget the trainmen for awhile and take charge of the squad while he went to look for Pete. He had become so bewildered that he could not tell the direction whence they had come, or where the tragedy was likely to have happened. The farther he went in attempting to penetrate the maze of moving trains, the more hopeless the quest seemed. Finally he went over to the engineer of a locomotive that was standing still and inquired if he had heard of any accident to a boy soldier during the day.
TWO:The other elder, leaning forward from the waist, peered at Cadnan. His eye was larger than normal, and glittering cold. Cadnan, awestruck, neither spoke nor moved, and the elder regarded him for a time and then said abruptly: "Not all are called to the truth.""There's my shoe," exclaimed Harry, as he stumbled over one.
TWO:"I hit my man in the leg," said Harry, flushing with delight, as he bit off another cartridge. "Jerusalem, I wish they'd send another one down."Shorty tried to disprove the charge as to the subject of his thoughts by falling to furiously and with such precipitation that he spilt his coffee, upset the molasses-jug, and then collapsed in dismay at his clumsiness.
TWO:"Yes, we have a man who claimed to belong to that regimenta straggler, who hadn't any papers to show. I had no idea whether he was telling the truth. He was outrageously sassy, and I had to give him a lesson to keep a civil tongue in his head. Take a seat. I'll send for him."
THREE:Cadnan felt a surge of hope. Marvor might leave, take away the disturbance he always carried with him. "You will go and join them?"
THREE:Shorty took much credit for his honesty and forbearance that he did not touch a single one of the pioneers' belongings but their arms. A little later the squad was in bivouac a mile away.