FORE: Somepunkins Station, Ind.:
FORE:"We're comin' to Stewart's Crick, Shorty," said Si, looking up from his paper. "Recollect that hill ovyr there? That's where they had that battery that the Colonel thought we wuz goin' to git. Great Scott, the mud and briars in that old field!" "Yes," said Shorty, negligently, with his eyes fixed on the backs of the cards. "But that's ancient history. Say, I've got these marks down fine at last. They're just as plain as A, B, C. You see, when that corner o' the square comes out clear to the edge it's clubs, every time, and there's just as many spots as there is of lines"
FORE:The eager boys had already begun firing, entering into the spirit of the thing with the zest of a Fame of town-ball. Shorty took Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn down to the cover of some large stones, behind which they could lie and command the approach to the other end of the bridge with their rifles. Si took the other boys and placed them behind rocks and stumps along the crest and instructed them to fire with as good aim as possible at the flashes from the other side. In a minute or two he had a fine skirmish-line in operation, with the boys firing as deliberately and accurately as veterans. The engineer had backed the train under the cover of the cut, and presently he and the conductor came up with guns and joined the firing-line.
THREE:He could feel himself tighten, as if he were truly waiting for something. But there was nothing to wait for.
THREE:"It mayn't be as bad as we expect," the Orderly-Sergeant tried to console them. "The bite of most of them regulations and charges and specifications ain't never near as bad as their bark. If they were, a good many of us would have been shot long ago. My experience in the army's been that the regulations are like the switches the teachers used to have in schoola willow for the good scholars, and a stout hickory for the bad ones. Still, I'm afraid that Shorty won't get off with less than hard labor for life on the fortifications."
