"Umhuh," said Shorty, nodding assent."If we do it's got to be done mighty slick," said Si. "They're all mighty good boys, and spunky. They'll all want to go with us, and if they find out we've made any choice they'll never forgive us. I'd a'most as soon have one six boys as another, yit if I had to pick out six I believe I'd take Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall, Alf Russell, Monty Scruggs, Jim Humphreys and Sandy Baker.""I'll settle with you, Shorty, when I have more time," Si remarked as he took his place.
ONE:"Yes?" Dr. Haenlingen said. "What am I going to do?"Hot words sprang to Shorty's lips, but he remembered the General's injunction about the character and dignity of the staff, and restrained himself to merely saying:
TWO:Others were turned away with similar brusqueness, until the Deacon was in despair; but the though of Si on a bed of pain nerved him, and he kept his place in the line that was pushing toward the Provost's desk.
TWO:In another minute, he was sure Norma wasn't going to come back. Probably she had found someone else, he told himself in what he thought was a reasonable manner. After all, he wasn't a very exciting person: she had probably started off to get him a drink or something, with the best of intentions, and met someone more interesting on the way.
The next time he succeeded in making it read:And he and Si shuddered at the thought of that good old man in the hands of the merciless scoundrels who infested the mountains and woods beyond the camps."That Major I spoke to," said Lieut. Bowersox, as Si and Shorty looked anxiously in his face, "is on the corps staff, and he says the whole infernal Southern Confederacy is out there for blood. They jumped us yesterday like a pack of famished wolves. But Rosecrans had just got his army together in time, though some of the divisions had to march till their tongues were hanging out. All the boys were dead game, though, and they stood the rebels off everywhere in great shape. He hasn't the faintest idea where the 200th Ind. is. The divisions and brigades have been jumped around from one end of the line to the other till he has but little more idea where any regiment is than if it was in the moon. The only way for us is to make our way as fast as we can to the front, where they need every man, and trust to luck to find the regiment. We'll probably not find it, but we'll find a place where they need us badly."