"Well, I will," said Shorty. "You fix her up with the coffee, and leave the rest to me. I always had a fancy for queer animals, and run off from home once to travel with a menagerie. I"d like to take her up{185} North and start a side-show with her. "The Queen o" the Racc.o.o.n Mountains," or the "Champion Snuff-Dipper o" the Sequatchie Valley." How"d that do for a sign?"

"Well, go ahead," said Si. "But expect no help from me."

"Mr. Klegg, when I want your help in courtin" a lady I"ll let you know,"

said Shorty with dignity. Si went back to the tent to see about getting the coffee, and Shorty approached Mrs. Bolster with an engaging expression on his countenance. She was knocking the ashes out of her pipe.

"Let me fill your pipe up again. Madam, with something very choice,"

said he, pulling out a plug of bright natural leaf. "Here"s some terbacker the like o" which you never see in all your born days. It was raised from seed stole from the private stock of the High-muk-a-muk o"

Turkey, brung acrost the ocean in a silver terbacker box for the use o" President Buchanan, and planted in the new o" the moon on a piece o" ground that never before had raised nothin" but roses and sweet-williams. My oldest brother, who is a Senator from Oshkosh, got just one plug of it, which he divided with me."

"O, my! is that true?" she gurgled.

"It"s as true as that you are a remarkably fine lookin" woman," he said with unblushing countenance, as he began whittling off some of the tobacco to fill her pipe. "I was struck by your appearance as soon as I saw you. I always was very fond of the Southern ladies."

"Sakes alive, air y"?" she asked; "then what air yo"uns down here foutin" we"uns fur?"{186}

"That"s a long story, m"m," answered Shorty. "It was a trick o" the Abolition politicians that got us into it. I"m awful sick o" the war (that we hain"t gone ahead and knocked the heads offen this whole crowd instead o" layin" "round here in camp for months)" he added as a mental reservation, "and wisht I was out of it (after we"ve hung Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree). Then I might settle down here and marry some nice woman. You"re a widder, I believe you said."

"Yes, I"m a widder," she answered, taking her pipe from her mouth and giving him what she intended for a languishing smile, but which Shorty afterward said reminded him of a sun-crack in a mud fence. "Yes, I"m a widder. Bin so for gwine on six months. Sakes alive, but ye do talk nice. You air the best-lookin" Yankee I"ve ever seed." "Nothin"

painfully bashful about her," thought Shorty. "But I must be careful not to let her get me near a Justice of the Peace. She"d marry me before I could ketch my breath. Madam," he continued aloud.

"Yo" may call me Sophrony," she said, with another cavernous smile.

"Well, Sophrony, let me present you with half o" this plug o" famous terbacker." He drew his jackknife and sliced the plug in two. "Take it, with my warmest respects. Here comes my partner with some coffee I"ve sent him for, and which I want you to have. It is not as much as I"d like to give you, but it"s all that I have. Some other day you shall have much more."

"Law"s sakes." she bubbled, as the fragrant odor{187} of the coffee reached her nose, and she hefted the package. "Yo" air jest the nicest man I ever did see in all my born days. I didn"t s"pose thar wuz so nice a man, or sich a good-lookin" one, in the hull Yankee army, or in the oonfederit either, fur that matter. But, then, yo" ain"t no real blue-bellied Yankee."

"No, indeed, Sophrony. I never saw New England in all my life, nor did any o" my people. They wuz from Virginny (about 500 miles, as near as I kin calculate)" he added to himself as a mental poultice.

"Say, Mister, why don"t you leave the Yankee army?"

"Can"t," said Shorty, despairingly. "If I tried to git back home the Provos "ll ketch me. If I go the other way the rebel"s ketch me. I"m betwixt the devil and the deep sea."

She sat and smoked for several minutes in semblance of deep thought, and spat with careful aim at one after another of the prominent weeds around. Then she said:

"If yo" want t" splice with me, I kin take keer o" yo". I"ve helped run off several o" the boys who wuz sick o" this Abolition war. Thar"s two o" them now with Bill Phillips"s gang makin" it hot for the Yankee trains and camps. They"re makin" more"n they ever did soljerin", an"

havin" a much better time, for they take whatever they want, no matter who it belongs to. D" yo" know Groundhog, a teamster? He"s in cahoots with us."

"Oh!" said Shorty to himself. "Here"s another lay altogether. Guess it"s my duty to work it for all that it"s worth."{188}

"Is it a bargain?" she said suddenly, stretching out her long, skinny hand.

"Sophrony," said Shorty, taking her hand, "this is so sudden. I never thought o" marryin"--at least till this cruel war is over. I don"t know what kind of a husband I"d make. I don"t know whether I could fill the place o" your late husband!"

"Yo"re not gwine t" sneak out," she said, with a fierce flash in her gray eyes. "If yo" do I"ll have yo" pizened."

"Now, who"s talkin" about backin" out?" said Shorty in a fever of placation, for he was afraid that some of the other boys would overhear the conversation. "Don"t talk so loud. Come, let"s walk on toward your home. We kin talk on the way."

The proposition appeared reasonable. She took the bridle of her horse in her arm, and together they walked out through the guard-line. The sentries gave Shorty a deep, knowing wink as he pa.s.sed. He went the more willingly, as he was anxious to find out more about the woman, and the operations of the gang with which she was connected. She had already said enough to explain several mysterious things of recent occurrence.

Night came down and as her ungainliness was not thrust upon him as it was in the broad glare of day, he felt less difficulty in professing a deep attachment for her. He even took her hand. On her part she grew more open and communicative at every step, and Shorty had no difficulty in understanding that there was gathered around her a gang that was practicing about everything detrimental to the army. They were by turns spies, robbers, murderers, whisky{189} smugglers, horse-thieves, and anything else that promised a benefit to themselves. Ostensibly they were rebels, but this did not prevent their preying upon the rebels when occasion offered. Some were deserters from the rebel army, some were evading the conscript laws, two or three were deserters from our army.

Shorty and the woman had reached a point nearly a half-mile outside of the guard-line when he stopped and said:

"I can"t go no farther now. I must go back." "Why must yo" go back?" she demanded, with a{190} sudden angry suspicion. "I thought yo" wuz gwine right along with me."

"Why, no. I never thought o" that. I must go back and get my things before I go with you," said Shorty, as the readiest way of putting her off.

"Plague take y"r things," she said. "Let "em go. Yo" kin git plenty more jest as good from the next Yankee camp. Yo" slip back some night with the boys an" git yo"r own things, if y"r so dratted stuck on "em. Come along now."

She took hold of his wrist with a grip like iron. Shorty had no idea that a woman could have such strength.

"I want to go back and git my partner," said Shorty. "Me and him "ve bin together all the time we"ve bin in the army. He"ll go along with me, I"m sure. Me and him thinks alike on everything, and what one starts the other jines in. I want to go back an" git him."

"I don"t like that partner o" your"n. I don"t want him. I"ll be a better partner t" yo" than ever he was. Yo" mustn"t think more o" him than yo"

do o" me."

"Look here, Sophrony," said Shorty desperately, "I cannot an" will not go with you to-night. I"m expectin" important letters from home to-morrow, and I must go back an" git "em. I"ve a thousand things to do before I go away. Have some sense. This thing"s bin sprung on me so suddenly that it ketches me unawares."

With the quickness of a flash she whipped out a long knife from somewhere, and raised it, and then hesitated a second.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE WHIPPED OUT A LONG KNIFE. 189]

"I believe yo"re foolin" me, and if I wuz sh.o.r.e I"d{191} stick yo". But I"m gwine t" give yo" a chance. Yo" kin go back now, an" I"ll come for yo" ter-morrer. If you go back on me hit"ll be a mouty sorry day for yo". Mind that now."

Shorty gallantly helped her mount, and then hurried back to camp.

CHAPTER XIV. SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH SI

HE GOES OUT TO VISIT MRS. BOLSTER.

SHORTY sauntered thoughtfully back to the tent, and on the way decided to tell Si the whole occurrence, not even omitting the deceit practiced.

He had to admit to himself that he was unaccountably shaken up by the affair.

Si was so deeply interested in the revelations that he forgot to blame Shorty"s double-dealing.

"Never had my nerve so strained before," Shorty frankly admitted. "At their best, women are curiouser than transmogrified hullaloos, and when a real cute one sets out to hornswoggle a man he might as well lay down and give right up, for he hain"t no earthly show. She gits away with him every time, and one to spare. That there woman"s got the devil in her bigger"n a sheep, and she come nigher makin" putty o" your Uncle Ephraim than I ever dreamed of before. It makes me shivery to think about it."

"I don"t care if she"s more devils in her than the Gadarene swine, she must be stopped at once," said Si, his patriotic zeal flaming up. "She"s doin" more mischief than a whole regiment o" rebels, and must be busted immediately. We"ve got to stop{193} her."

"But just how are we goin" to stop her?" Shorty asked. There was a weak unreadiness in Shorty"s tones that made Si look at him in surprise.

Never before, in any emergency, had there been the slightest shade of such a thing in his bold, self-reliant partner"s voice.

"I"d rather tackle any two men there are in the Southern Confederacy than that woman," said Shorty. "I believe she put a spell on me."

"Le"s go up and talk to Capt. McGillicuddy about it," said Si.

Ordinarily, this was the last thing that either of them would have thought of doing. Their usual disposition was to go ahead and settle the problem before them in their own way, and report about it afterward. But Shorty was clearly demoralized.