Careful milker that he was, he did not stop until he had stripped the last drop, and the cow, knowing at once that a master hand was at her udder, willingly yielded all her store.
Si saw that this task of making Annabel under stand the reason for military rank was going to take some time, and could be better done when they were by themselves, and he took her out by the kitchen-fire to make the explanation."Purty slouchy bizniss that, givin' these kids guns before they've had any drill at alldon't know even the facin's, let alone the manual of arms," remarked Shorty doubtfully, as they marched over to the shed. "They'll be shooting holes through each others' heads and the tops o' the cars, and'll waste more ammynition than a six-mule team kin haul. They'll make a regler Fourth o' July from here to Chattynoogy."Everybody did. Not that there's ever been a chance to use it.
FORE:Onward they rushed full into the smoke that drifted backward down the hill. As they gained the crest the air became clearer, and they saw the sadly-shrunken remnant of their regiment strung in an irregular line along the forward edge. Some were binding up wounds more or less severe, some were searching the boxes of the dead and wounded for cartridges, some were leaning on their hot guns, looking curiously into the woods at the foot of the slope into which the rebels had fled.
FORE:The bodies of Bob Willis and Jim Humphreys were wrapped in their blankets, and mournfully consigned to the earth. A cedar bush was stuck in the head of each grave, and Si, finding a piece of smooth board and a chunk of soft charcoal from a fire, sat down on the bank, and begun laboriously composing the following inscription:This seemed to be the prevailing sentiment, and Si began to fear that they would all go, and might intercept Shorty. He was on the point of ordering the boys to fire, and attract their attention, when Shorty's rifle rang out, and the next instant came a roar from Shorty's powerful lungs, with each word clear and distinct:
FORE:In the contact between any barbarian people and any civilized people, some species of slavery is necessary. The barbarian does not know that he is a barbarian, and the only way to convey to him the fact that he stands at the bottom of a long laddera ladder so long that we have by no means reached its end, and have perhaps not yet seen its midpointis to force him to make contact with elements of civilization, and to utilize continuous force to keep this contact alive and viable.
FORE:He sprang toward him, snatched the half-canteen from his hand, and threw its contents on the ground."Si," said Shorty, one morning after he had finished the best breakfast he had ever known, the girls had gone away with the things, and he was leaning back thinking it all over in measureless content, "if the preachers'd preach that a feller'd go to such a place as this when he died if he was real good, how good we'd all be, and we'd be rather anxious to die. How in the world are we ever goin' to git up spunk enough to leave this and go back to the field?"
THREE:But the guilt remained, and the guilt demanded."I'm a farmer, and a citizen from Injianny, and I want to buy some chickens for my son, who's sick in the hospital at Chattanoogy."
"As sure 's you're a foot high," replied the Wagonmaster."Dodd," he said. "John Dodd. They call me Johnny."He did so, and came to a little open space made by the washings which poured over the crest of the rock when the rain descended in torrents. There was a cleft there, but it was 40 feet above them, and surrounded by rebels, who yelled at the sight of his squad, and sent down a volley of bowlders. Si and his squad promptly dodged these by getting behind trunks of trees. They fired at the rebels on the crest, who as promptly lay down and sheltered themselves.Shortly after daybreak the team limped painfully up the slope of Mission Ridge, through Rossville Gap, on either side of which stood Thomas's indomitable army in battle array, sternly defying the rebel hosts of Bragg and Longstreet, which swarmed over the hills and valleys in front, but without much apparent appetite for a renewal of the dreadful fray.