Shorty started over to where some of the boys were trying to extricate a rebel limber abandoned in a ravine. He spied a pair of fine field glasses lying on the ground, and picked them up with an exclamation of delight. "Great Jehosephat," he said, turning them over for careful inspection. "Ain't this a puddin'? Just the thing to give the Cap. He got his smashed with a bullet comin' through the abatis, and's bin mournin' about 'em ever since. These is better'n his was, and he'll be ticked to death to git 'em." He put them to his eyes and scanned the landscape. "Ain't they just daisies, though. Bring that teamster over there so close that I kin hear him cussin' his mules. Cap'll have a better pair o' glasses than the Colonel or the General has. He deserves 'em, too. Capt. McGillicuddy's good all the way through, from skin to bone, and as brave as they make 'em. He'll be tickleder than a boy with a new pair o' red-topped boots. He'll invite me to take a drink with him, but he won't have nothin' so good as this old apple-jack. I guess I'll give the rest to him, too, for his friends at headquarters. They don't often smack their lips over stuff like that. But I'll treat myself once more, just as Capt. McGillicuddy'd do." The last drink was a settler. He was then in a frame of mind for anything--to tear down a mountain, or lift a hill, or to fight anybody, with or without cause. He looked over at the boys struggling with the limber, and yelled, as he laid his coat, hat, canteen, and cartridge-box down on the stump upon which he had been sitting, and placed the field-glass upon them: "Hoopee! Yank her out o' there, boys. Yank h'er out, and don't be all day about it, either. Let me git at her and I'll fetch her out. Stand by, you kids, and see your uncle Eph snatch her." He bolted in to the ravine, swung the limber-tongue about, and with aid of the rest, stirred to united effort by much profane vociferation on his part, disengaged the limber and trundled it up the bank. The tall, very stiff young Aid, with whom Si and Shorty had had the previous affair, came stalking on to the ground, viewing everything with his usual cold, superior, critical gaze. "You are doing well, my man," he remarked to Shorty, "but too much noise. A non-commissioned officer must not swear at his men. It's strictly against regulations." "Go to blazes," said Shorty, scarcely under his breath. The Aid picked up the field-glasses, looked at them a minute, scanned the field with them, and then looked around for the case, as if to appropriate them himself. "Here, drop them," said Shorty roughly. "Them's mine." "How did they come to be yours, sir?" said the Aid sternly. "Picked them up, didn't you?" "None o' your business how I got 'em. They're mine, I tell you. Give 'em to me." "You picked them up on the battlefield, sir. They are military equipments which you must turn over to the proper officer. I'll take charge of them myself."