Her merry laugh filled the room, and rang even into the dark cells inside. Shorty shambled to his feet, pulled off his hat, and stood with downcast eyes and burning face. He had never encountered anything so beautiful and so terrifying.
ONE:Si had led his squad straight across the field, against a group engaged in pulling down the fence. They were caught without their arms, and two were run down and captured. Palpitating with success, the boys rushed over to where the regiment was gathering itself together at the edge of the woods on the brow of the ridge.
TWO:
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ONE:Little Pete "snugged" in with Shorty, but when that gentleman was awakened by Si a little after daylight, Pete was gone.
TWO:The room had no windows.
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ONE:"It don't seem to occur to you that you could find out by openin' it," said the Deacon, sarcastically.
TWO:Shorty winked appreciatively at Serg't Elkins.
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TWO:"Neither," answered Si. "It's only a common, straight, every-day march out into the country. You kin count upon one a day like this for the rest o' your natural livesI mean your service. It's part o' what you enlisted for. And this's only a beginnin'. Some days you'll have to keep this up 15 or 18 hours at a stretch."The spectacle of the two partners quarreling startled them all. They stopped and looked aghast.
FORE:"Go ahead and obey your orders," said Shorty. "Don't mind me. I'm willin' to take it. I've had my say, which was worth a whole week o' buckin'. It 'll be something to tell the boys when I git back, that I saw old Billings swellin' around, and told him right before his own men just what we think of him. Lord, how it 'll tickle 'em. I'll forgit all about the buckin', but they won't forgit that."
FORE:"Come on over," the master said from the doorway. "Come on over." He made a beckoning motion.
FORE:"Small beings make it," Dara corrected him. "There are such small beings, not slaves and not masters. They have no speech but they make sound."After everything had been done, after she had fed them her carefully-prepared dishes, after the boys had been put to bed in the warmed room, and she knew they were sleeping the sound sleep of deep fatigue, she went to her own room to sit down and think it all over. There Maria found her, wiping away her tears, and took her in her arms, and kissed her.
FORE:"Did they have flint-locks or caps?"
FORE:To Shorty's amazement a score of men came rushing back from the car next ahead of the caboose. They had, by a preconcerted arrangement, been jumping on the train ever since it grew dark, and collected in that car. Some of them had guns, but the most appeared unarmed.
FORE:"I'm goin' to trust you," said the Deacon, stirring up the savory mess, ladling out a generous cupful, adding a drumstick, and covering the cup with a piece of paper. "Now, carry it carefully. Every drop's worth its weight in gold."
TWO:He heard his own voice answering. "Get back to the bunker. You'll be safe in the bunker. Leave me alone." His voice was strange to his ears, like an echo of the blasts themselves, rough and loud."Well, I don't think any the more o' them for it. We spiled our rations before the fightin' begun, they'd bin spiled if there'd bin no fightin', and I haint going to send no other words, if I've got to send any word."
TWO:Before him he noticed a deep gully cut in the bank, by which he could get down to the water's edge where there was a clump of paw-paws projecting out toward the willows. If he went down there it would make his shot surer, but there was much danger that he would be noticed and fired at on his way.
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TWO:
TWO:"Hello, Monty," called Shorty jovially to drive out the sad thoughts. "Got that kink out o' your backbone? Bully boy. You've got the right kind of nerve. You'll be a man before your mother yet."
TWO:Cadnan stared at his leaf for a time. His mind was troubled, and there were no ready solutions in it. He was not of the temperament to fasten himself to easy solutions. He had instead to hammer out his ideas slowly and carefully: then when he had reached a conclusion of some kind, he had confidence in it and knew it would last.
"An' is that the goon for me?" said one of the Irishmen contemptuously, as Si proudly handed him a trusty Springfield he had found unwatched some where. "That fool thing wid a bore no bigger'n a gimlet hole? Fwhy, out in the ould country, when we go man-hunting, we take a goon wid a mouth like a funnel, that ye can put a hat full av balls inter. To the divil wid such a goon as this.""There's no place to telegraph from till we get to Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and if we could telegraph they wouldn't pay any attention to mere reports of having seen rebels at a distance. They want something more substantial than that.""O, no, we don't," said Si patiently, for her ignorance seemed beautifully feminine, where Maria's was provoking. "You see, dear, he's my Captaincommands about a hundred sich as me, and wears a sword and shoulder-straps and other fine clothes, and orders me and the rest around, and has his own tent, all by himself, and his servant to cook for him, and we have to salute him, and do jest what he says, and not talk backat least, so he kin hear it, and jest lots o' things."He had gone but a few steps from the building when he saw the man who had been ordered out of the city by the Provost, and who seemed to be on the lookout for the Deacon. He came up, greeted the Deacon effusively and shook hands.CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE SKIRMISH