"How in thunder'd you come to git into a fracas with that herd o' mavericks, Si?" asked Shorty, in a tone of rebuke, as the Sergeant was rounding up the crowd and trying to get at who was to blame. "Couldn't you find somebody on your own level to fight, without startin' a fuss with a passel o' low-down, rust-eaten roustabouts? What's got into you? Bin livin' so high lately that you had to have a fight to work off your fractiousness? I'm surprised at you." "Groundhog' d got hold of a letter o' your'n to your girl up in Wisconsin," gasped Si, "and was readin' it to the crowd. Here's a piece of it." Shorty glanced at the fragment of torn paper in Si's hand, and a deep blush suffused his sun-browned cheek. Then he gave a howl and made a rush for Groundhog. "Here, let that man alone, or I'll make you," shouted the Sergeant of the Guard. "Sergeant," said Si, "that rat-faced teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl, and was reading it to this gang o' camp offal." "O," said the Sergeant, in a changed tone; "hope he'll baste the life out of him." And he jumped in before a crowd that was showing some disposition to go to Groundhog's assistance, sharply ordered them to about-face, and drove them off before him. "Here, Sergeant," shouted the Officer of the Guard, who came running up; "what are you fooling around with these fellows for? They're not doing any thing. Don't you see that man's killing that team ster?" "Teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl," explained the Sergeant, "and was reading it to these whelps." "O," said the Officer of the Guard in a different tone. "Run these rascals down there in front of the Quartermaster's and set them to work digging those stumps out. Keep them at it till midnight, without anything to eat. I'll teach them to raise disturbances in camp." CHAPTER X. AFTER BRAGG AGAIN RESTFUL SUMMER DAYS END--THE UNION PEOPLE OF EAST TENNESSEE. THOUGH every man in the Army of the Cumberland felt completely worn out at the end of the Tullahoma campaign, it needed but a few days' rest in pleasant camps on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, with plenty of rations and supplies of clothing, to beget a restlessness for another advance. They felt envious of their comrades of the Army of the Tennessee, who had cornered their enemy in Vicksburg and forced him to complete surrender. On the other hand, their enemy had evaded battle when they offered it to him on the place he had himself chosen, had eluded their vigorous pursuit, and now had his army in full possession of the great objective upon which the eyes of the Army of the Cumberland had been fixed for two years Chattanooga.