"But I haint told you half," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "Them smarties were quick to find out that Alf Russell and Jim Humphreys leaned strongly toward religion, and they filled 'em with the idea that Cap McGillicuddy was a very devout man, and held family devotions every evening in his tent, in which his company joined."
Presently, on mounting a roll of the ground, they saw sloping down from them a few rods away, and running obliquely to their right, a small "deadening," made by the shiftless farmer for his scanty corn crop. A mob of fugitives flying through had trampled the stalks to the ground. Si and Shorty had seen some of them and yelled at them to come up and form on them, but the skedaddlers either would not or could not hear."I'm Captain enough for you," answered Si, thrusting the muzzle of his gun close to his face. "Surrender this minute, or off goes your head."
ONE:"Whose orders?" demanded Levi. "Who dares give orders that over-ride mine? You go at once and have an enginethe best one you havehitched on. Couple on my car, and be ready to start in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes I give you," continued he, looking at his watch. "Tell the Train Dispatcher to clear everything into switches until we get to Murfreesboro, and have the operator at Murfreesboro lay by everything till we get to Nashville."
ONE:The vigilant Orderly-Sergeant was at once on his feet, rousing the other "non-coms" to get the men up.It was the through train to St. Louis that he boarded, and the only vacant seat that he could find was one partially filled with the belongings of a couple sitting facing it, and very close together. They had hold of one another's hands, and quite clearly were dressed better than they were accustomed to. The man was approaching middle age, and wore a shiny silk hat, a suit of broadcloth, with a satin vest, and a heavy silver watch chain. His face was rather strong and hard, and showed exposure to rough weather. The woman was not so much younger, was tall and angular, rather uncomfortably conscious of her good clothes, and had a firm, settled look about her mouth and eyes, which only partially disappeared in response to the man's persistent endearments. Still, she seemed more annoyed than he did at the seating of another party in front of them, whose eyes would be upon them. The man lifted the things to make room for Shorty, who commented to himself:
THREE:"That camp ground don't look as it'd bin occupied for two weeks," said Shorty. "See the ruts made by the rain in the parade ground and the general look o' things. I don't believe the rijimint only left there yisterday. It don't look as if the 200th Injianny ever had sich a camp. It's more like one o' the camps o' them slack-twisted Kaintucky and Tennessee rijimints."
The masters were all around them.He had tried to talk to Marvor about the truths, of course. Marvor, though, had been obstinately indifferent. Nothing made any impression on his hardened, stubborn mind. And now he was gone.
