He was none too soon, for there were getting to be thousands of very hungry men in Chattanooga who remembered the axiom about the early bird catching the worm, and thought the best time for "snatching" something was in the dark just before reveille. If they could find nothing better, and too often they did not, they would rob the mules of their scanty rations of corn, and soon a mule's feed-box had to be as carefully guarded as the commissary tent of the Headquarters mess.Therefore he cut a young, thick-branched cedar and held it in front of him as he crouched and made his way to the gully and down it.
FORE:"Gid Mackall's lying over there, somewhere," said Larry Joslyn, who was all anxiety in regard to his old partner and antagonist. "Let me go and find him."
FORE:Leaving Si gazing anxiously in every direction for some clew to his missing youngsters, Shorty rushed off in the direction of the sutler's shanties, where instinct told him he was most likely to find the runaways."My name's Corporal Elliott. You will address me as such," answered Shorty.
Loading his gun with the practiced ease of a veteran as he rushed forward, Si led his squad directly against the position of the rebels. Part of the rebels had promptly run away, as they heard Si order the charge, but part boldly stood their ground, and were nervously reloading, or fixing bayonets, as the squad came crashing through the brush. One of the rebels fired a hasty, ineffectual shot, and by its light Shorty saw the nervous little Pete, who had torn off his cumbering haversack, letting his hat go with it, slip between him and Si, and gain a pace in advance."Well, make your way back to the cars and git in and lay down.""Possibly," he suggested to Si, "the conductor will take us further up into the town, where we kin find somebody that we know, who'll tell us where the rijimint is."
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