Quite a number of officers and men thronged to the water's edge to see what could be coming from that unexpected quarter. The Lieutenant ordered the boys to fall to the rear with their canoe, that he might be the first to land, and as his bateau labored close to the shore he recognized the Colonel in command of the picket line, and said in a loud voice: "Sir, I have the honor to report that I have been across the creek reconnoitering the enemy's lines. I have with me five prisoners four soldiers and one guerrilla." CHAPTER VI. DISTRESSING ENEMIES OTHER THAN THE REBELS AND RAIN, MUD, AND SWOLLEN STREAMS. SI WOKE up early the next morning with a savage exclamation. "I declare, I'm all on fire," he said. "Some thing's just eating me up. I believe I've got a million graybacks on me." [Illustration: I'M ALL ON FIRE 77] "Same here, Si," said Shorty. "Never knowed 'em to be so bad. Seem to 've just got in from a march, and are chawin' three days' rations out o' me every minute. I'd 'a' thought they'd all 've bin drowned from the duckin' they've bin havin' for the past five days, but it only seems to 've sharpened their teeth and whetted their appetites. They've all come to dinner, and invited their friends." "Where in the world could they have all come from?" meditated Si. "We wuz certainly clean of 'em when we started out six days ago." "O, the rebels skipped out in sich a hurry," ex plained Shorty, "that they even dropped their house hold pets, which we inherited as we follered 'em up. I wish this infernal rain'd let up long enough for us to do some skirmishin' and bile our clothes. Or if the sun'd only come out an hour or two, we could find an ant-hill, an' lay our clothes on it. I don't know any little thing that I enjoy more on a pleasant day when we've bin a long march and got mighty 'crumby, than to pull off my shirt and lay it on a lively ant-hill, and light my pipe and set there and watch the busy ants collar its inhabitants and carry 'em off to fill up their smoke-houses with Winter meat." He put his hand meditatively into his bosom as he spoke. As he withdrew it he looked down and exclaimed: "Jehosephat, it's fleas, too. Just look there. I'm alive with fleas." "Same here," ejaculated Si, who had made a similar discovery. "Just look at 'em, hoppin' out every where. The rebels have not only set their grayback infantry on to us, but are jumping us with their flea cavalry." "If you call the graybacks infantry and the fleas cavalry, what in the world do you call these, Si?" said Shorty, who had made still another discovery, and was pointing to his wrists and ankles, where rows of gorged ticks, looking like drops of fresh blood, encircled his limbs.