"Here, Si," said one, "is a nice knuckle-bone o' ham, that I pulled back there at the General's when his cook returned to the tent for something. You ought t've heard the nigger cussing as I walked away, but he couldn't recognize the back o' my head, nor see under my overcoat. Me and my chum 've had supper off it, and we wuz saving the rest for breakfast, but I'll brile it for you." "Some of them Kentucky fellers," said another, "found a sheep in the briars and killed it. I traded 'em my silk handkerchief for a hunk o' the meat. I'm going to cook a slice for you, Si." "Si, I'll bile some coffee for you," said a third. "I'll toast some crackers for you," added a fourth. Shorty roused. He felt so much gladder than any of them, that he was jealous of their attentions. "See here, you fellers," said he, "this is my partner, an' I'm able to take care of him. I'll bile all the coffee an' toast all the crackers he kin eat; though I'm much obliged to you, Jim, for your ham, and to you, Billy, for your mutton, though I'm afraid it'll taste too much of the wool for a wounded man." "Don't mind about that," said Si; "I'm hungry enough to eat the wool on the sheep's back, even. Hand over your mutton, Billy, and thankee for it. My appetite's not delicate, I can tell you. Woolly mutton won't faze it more'n bark would a buzz-saw." Si didn't over-state the case. He ate everything{119} that was cooked and offered him, until he declared that he was so full he "could touch it with his finger." [Illustration: SHORTY THINKS SI DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A GHOST. 118] "I'm sure you're not a ghost, from the way you eat," said Shorty, who was beginning to recover his propensity for sarcasm. "If ghosts et like you there'd have to be a steam bakery an' a pork packery run in connection with every graveyard." "And I'd never take no ghost to board," said Billy. "Come, Si," said Jimmy Barlow, filling his briarwood pipe with kinnikinnick, lighting it from the fire, taking a few puffs to start it, and handing it to Si, "tell us just what happened to you. We're dyin' to hear." "Well," said Si, settling down with the pipe into a comfortable position, "I don't know what happened. Last thing I knowed I wuz runnin' ahead on Shorty's left, loadin' my gun, an' tryin' to keep up with the Colonel's hoss. Next thing I knowed I wuz wakin' up at the foot of a black-oak. Everything was quiet around me, except the yellin' of two or three wounded men a little ways off. At first I thought a cannonball' d knocked my whole head off. Then it occurred to me that if my head was knocked off I couldn't hear nor see." "Nor think, even," injected Shorty. "No, nor think, even. For what'd you think with?" "I know some fellers that seem to think with their feet, and that blamed awkwardly," mused Shorty.