Instantly a dozen men unbuckled their belts, laid their guns on the ground, and pulled off their coats, each one trying to be the first to climb the tree. It was, however, too large for them to reach far enough around to get a good hold on it, so climbing it was found to be far more difficult than it looked to be. “Why don’t you cut it down?” asked some one. But Evelyn cried out that that would kill Kittykin, so the man who suggested it was called a fool by the others. At last it was proposed that one man should stand against the tree and another should climb up on his shoulders, when he might get his arms far enough around it to work his way up. A stout fellow with a gray jacket on planted himself firmly against the trunk, and one who had taken off a blue jacket climbed up on his shoulders, and might have got up very well if he had not remarked that as the Johnnies had walked over him in the last battle, it was but fair that he should now walk over a Johnny. This joke tickled the man under him so that he slipped away and let him down. At length, however, three or four men got good “holds,” and went slowly up one after the other amid such encouraging shouts from their friends on the ground below as: “Go it, Yank, the Johnny’s almost got you!” “Look out, Johnny, the Yanks are right behind you!” etc., whilst Kittykin gazed down in astonishment from above, and Evelyn looked up breathless from below. With much pulling and kicking, four men finally got up to the lowest limb, after which the climbing was comparatively easy. A new difficulty, however, presented itself. Kittykin suddenly took alarm, and retreated still higher up among the branches. The higher they climbed after that, the higher she climbed, until she was away up on one of the topmost boughs, which was far too slender for any one to follow her. There she turned and looked back with alternate alarm and satisfaction expressed in her countenance. If the men stirred, she stood ready to fly; if they kept still, she settled down and mewed plaintively. Once or twice as they moved she took fright and looked almost as if about to jump. Evelyn was breathless with excitement. “Don’t let her jump,” she called, “she will get kilt!”