"You are out late, my friend," said he."That's about it," answered Shorty disdainfully. "That's the way with all cavalry, dad-burn 'em. They're like a passel o' fice pups. They're all yelp and bark, and howl and showin' o' teeth. They're jest goin' to tear you to pieces. But when you pick up a stone or a club, or git ready to give 'em a good kick they're gone, the devil knows where. They're only an aggravation. You never kin do nothin' with 'em, and they kin do nothin' with you. I never kin understand why God Almighty wasted his time in makin' cavalry of any kind, Yank or rebel. All our own cavalry's good for is to steal whisky and chickens from honest soldiers of the infantry. The infantry's the only thing. It's like the big dog that comes up without any special remarks, and sets his teeth in the other dog. The thing only ends when one dog or the other is badly whipped and somethin's bin accomplished."
ONE:There was something so masterful in Si's way, that the rebel obeyed. Si set his own gun down against a hickory, in easy reach, and had the boys do the same. He had naturally gained a good deal of knowledge of rough surgery in the army, and he proceeded to put it to use. He washed the wounds, stayed the flow of blood, and to take the rising fever out of the hurts, he bound on them fresh, green dockleaves, wet with water. After the man he had struck had had his face washed, and his head thoroughly doused with cold water, he recovered rapidly and was soon able to sit up, and then rise weakly to his feet."There won't be any way to disguise the fact," Dr. Haenlingen said. "In the long run, there never is. And the fact will shock them into action. As long as they continue to live in that air of freedom and justice and equality under the law, they'll want to stop what we're doing here. They'll have to."
TWO:"And didn't I shoot one, too?" put in Gid Mackall. "Just as much as you did. They want tall men in the company, don't they, Corpril? Not little runts."FOR the next few days there was a puzzling maze of movements, which must have completely mystified the rebel Generalsas was intendedfor it certainly passed the comprehension of our own keen-eyed and shrewdly-guessing rank-and-file and lower oflficers.
THREE:("Now," commented Shorty, as he read what he had written, "that'll make Maria and his mother feel easy in their minds. They'll think they're in great luck to git a man who'll be a second father to Pete, and not risk spilin the child by sparin the rod.")
THREE:"The very best in the army," unhesitatingly as serted Shorty. "All free-born American citizens, and high-toned gentlemen. I tell you, they're daisies, they are.""They're cookin' vittels for them rebels on the ridge." The Deacon correctly diagnosed the situation. "By-and-by they'll come for 'em, or take 'em to 'em. Mebbe I kin find some way to collar some of 'em. It's a slim chance, but no other seems to show up just now. If no more'n one man comes for that grub I'm goin' to jump him."
