FORE:"I'll want to punch his rotten old head off the minute I set eyes on him," remarked Shorty, sotto voce; "but the character and dignity of the staff must be maintained.""What do you do when one o' them wild rebels comes cavorting and tearing toward you, on a big hoss, with a long sword, and yelling like a catamount?" he asked.
ONE:"Attention, company! Forward March!" shout ed Lieut. Bowersox.
TWO:Si strode over to the group, snatched the bat from Harry's hand, spanked him with it, and started for the others of the group.
THREE:"Good, the old man's goin' to take the grub out to 'em himself," thought the Deacon with relief. "He'll be easy to manage. No need o' shootin' him."
FORE:Shorty softly parted the bushes and looked in. Two of the well-known sharpers who hung around the camps had enticed little Pete in there, and to a game of three-card monte. They had inflamed his boyish conceit by allowing him to pick out two cards in succession, and with small bets.
"I'd like to do it," answered Lieut. Bigelow, "but I haven't the guard to spare. So many of my men got disabled that I won't have more than enough to guard the cars on the way back and keep these whelps from jumping the train or being rescued by their friends when we stop at the stations. The news of this affair is all over the country by this time, and their friends will all be out.""This is true," Cadnan muttered."Open it and read it, Maria," said Si, to whom reading of letters meant labor, and he was yet too weak for work."We've got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it's about poor Si."