ONE:Shorty fumed around at this while he was cooking his breakfast, for he wanted Pete to be there and eat heartily, in preparation for the arduous struggles of the momentous day which was breaking for them.
Si and Harry broke down a thick layer of cedar branches to make a comfortable bed for Gid, placed a chunk under his head, and hurried away again to search for Alf Russell. They went over carefully that part of the works they had crossed, and the abatis in front, but could find no trace of him. They feared that after he had been shot he had crawled back under the shelter of some tree-tops, to protect him from the flying bullets, and died there. They turned over and pulled apart the branches for a wide space, but did not succeed in finding him, or any trace. But they found Bob Willis, stark in death, lying prone in the top of a young hickory, into which he had crashed, when the fatal bullet found him pressing courageously forward. Him they carried pitifully forward, and added to the lengthening row of the regiment's dead, which was being gathered up."Look here, Jim Humphreys," grumbled Monty Scruggs, "when he told you to draw your stomach in he didn't mean for you to stick your hips out till you bumped me over into the next Township. I've got to have room to stand here, as well as you."There was silence.But the guilt remained, and the guilt demanded."Buggy or spring-wagon," muttered Si with a farmer boy's instinctive interpretation of such sounds. "What's it doin' in camp? Strange horse. In better condition than any around here."
