For long minutes Bushrod continued his impassioned appeals at the top of his voice, expecting every instant to have the Yankee bullets crash through his brain. At length he had to stop from lack of breath. Everything was very quiet--deathly so, it seemed to him. He stole a furtive glance around. No Yankees could be seen out of the tail of his eye on either side. Then he looked squarely around. None was visible anywhere. He jumped up, began cursing savagely, ran into the road, and started for home. He had gone but a few steps when he came squarely in front of the musket of the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q, who had placed himself in concealment to see the end of the play and bring him along. "Halt, there," commanded the Orderly-Sergeant; "face the other way and trot. We must catch up with the company." Si and Shorty felt that they had redeemed themselves, and returned to camp in such good humor with each other, and everybody else, that they forgot that their feet were almost as bad as ever. They went into the house and began cooking their supper together again. Shorty picked up the coffeecan and said: "Si Klegg, you're a gentleman all through, if you was born on the Wabash. A genuine gentleman is knowed by his never bein' no hog under no circumstances. I watched you when you looked into this coffee-can, and mad as I was at you, I said you was a thorobred when you left it all to me." {123} CHAPTER IX. SHORTY GETS A LETTER BECOMES ENTANGLED IN A HIGHLY IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE. A LIGHT spring wagon, inscribed "United States Sanitary Commission," drove through the camp of the 200th Ind., under the charge of a dignified man with a clerical cast of countenance, who walked alongside, looking at the soldiers and into the tents, and stopping from time to time to hand a can of condensed milk to this one, a jar of jam to another, and bunches of tracts to whomsoever would take them. Shorty was sitting in front of the house bathing his aching feet. The man stopped before him, and looked compassionately at his swollen pedals. "Your feet are in a very bad way, my man," he said sadly. "Yes, durn 'em," said Shorty impatiently. "I don't seem to git 'em well nohow. Must've got 'em pizened when I was runnin' through the briars." "Probably some ivy or poison-oak, or nightshade among the briars. Poison-oak is very bad, and nightshade is deadly. I knew a man once that had to have his hand amputated on account of getting poisoned by something that scratched him--nightshade, ivy, or poison-oak. I'm afraid your feet are beginning to mortify." "Well, you are a Job's comforter," thought Shorty.{124} "You'd be nice to send for when a man's sick. You'd scare him to death, even if there was no danger o' his dyin'."