"O," said Si, "we've bin hearin' about this Copperhead lodge for some time, and some of us boys who's home on furlough thought that we'd come down here with the Deputy Provo and bust it up. We've bin plannin' it a week or two. All these that you see, there are soldiers. I've 15, includin' myself." handwritin' is the most beautiful I ever seen. Jeb Smith,
THREE:"I knew you'd be," answered the Lieutenant; "so I got the General to let me have you. We'll get some 10 or 12 other good boys. That will be enough. I understand that there are about 100 regular attendants at the lodge, but they'll not all be there at any time, and a dozen of us can easily handle what we find there at home."
Si looked pleased as he recognized his father's letter, but his face flushed to the roots of his sandy hair at the sight of Annabel's. He put the latter carefully in his pocket. It was too sweet and sacred a thing to be opened and read under the gaze of any one else's eyes. He broke open his father's and as his eyes traveled slowly down the large foolscap pages, covered with the Deacon's full-grown characters, for the Deacon made his letters as he liked his stockbig and fullhe said:CHAPTER XVI. THE TROUBLESOME BOYS"Yo're bloody right we did," said Wat; "hand we wolloped them bloomin' rebels till they 'unted their 'oles hin the woods."CHAPTER V. TROUBLE ENCOUNTEREDHe was soon sleeping as soundly as only a thoroughly-tired man can, and would have slept no one knows how long, had not Shorty succeeded in waking him towards morning, after a shaking which exhausted the latter's strength."Hello, boys," said Monty Scruggs's voice, weak but unmistakably his, as the company recrossed the works.As the light broadened, and revealed the familiar hills and woods, unpeopled by masses of enemies, the shivery "2 o'clock-in-the-morning-feeling" vanished from the boys' hearts, and was succeeded by eagerness to see the redoubtable rebels, of whom so much had been said.
