The first round showed that both were past-masters of ring tactics. Their wardings and layings for openings were so perfect that neither could get a blow in.
"You bet I will," responded the boy, with his eyes dancing. "Goin' to run away? I'm goin to run away myself some day. I'm awful tired o' havin' to git up in the mornin', wash my face and comb my hair, and do the chores, and kneel down at family prayers, and go to Sunday, school, and stay through church, and then have to spell out a chapter in the Bible in the afternoon. I'm goin' to run away, and be a soldier, or go out on the plains and kill Injuns. I'm layin' away things now for it. See here?"The boys leaned on their muskets and watched the awful spectacle with dazed eyes. It seemed far more terrible even than the ordeal through which they had just been.
ONE:They found the house a blaze of light, shining kindly from the moment it came in sight, and there was a welcome in Towser's bark which touched Si's heart. "And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide,
ONE:There was more scurrying, and when at last Si reached a clear space, he had only a portion of his squad with him, while Shorty was vowing he would not go a step farther until he had licked a railroad man. But the engines continued to whirl back and forth in apparently purposeless confusion, and the moment that he fixed upon any particular victim of his wrath, he was sure to be compelled to jump out of the way of a locomotive clanging up from an unexpected direction and interposing a train of freight cars between him and the man he was after."Don't you belong to the 200th Ind.?"
"Why, you're crazy," gasped the Deacon.He heard himself speak. "You must go.""I'm afraid there's no use of picking up Corp'l Klegg and Shorty," said the Lieutenant, with tears in his eyes. "They got the rebel flag, but they're lying there stiff and cold."