"Better go back and look for little Pete, Shorty," said Si. "We seem to be losin' him." Pete was soon brought up, panting and tired. "Dod durn it, what're you all runnin' away from me for?" he gasped. "Want to lose me? Want to git into the fight all by yourselves, and leave me out? Think because I'm little I can't help? I kin shoot as well as anybody in the crowd, dod durn you." "There, you see the nonsense o' giving you as much rations as the others," suggested Alf Russell. "You can't pack 'em, and you wouldn't need 'em if you did pack 'em." "What business is it of yours. Mister Russell, I'd like to know," asked Monty Scruggs, "what he does with his rations. His rations are his rights, and he's entitled to 'em. It's nobody's business what use a man makes of his rights." "Where are these rebels that we're goin' to fight?" asked Harry Joslyn, eagerly scanning the horizon. "I've been looking for 'em all along, but couldn't see none. Was you in such a hurry for fear they'd get away, and have they got away?" "I wasn't in no hurry," answered Si. "That was only regler marchin' gait." "Holy smoke," murmured the rest, wiping their foreheads; "we thought you was trying to run the rebels down." "Don't be discouraged, boys," said Si. "You'll soon git used to marchin' that way right along, and never thinking of it. It may seem a little hard now, but it won't last long. I guess you're rested enough. Attention! Forward!--March!" Si and Shorty had mercifully intended to slow down a little, and not push the boys. But as they pulled out they forgot themselves, and fell again into their long, swinging stride, that soon strung the boys out worse than ever, especially as they were not now buoyed up by an expectation of meeting the enemy. "We must march slower. Si," said Shorty, glancing ruefully back, "or we'll lose every blamed one o' them boys. They're too green yit." "That's so," accorded Si. "It's like tryin' to make a grass-bellied horse run a quarter-stretch." "Might I inquire," asked Monty Scruggs, as he came up, wiped his face and sat down on a rock, "whether this is what you'd call a forced march, or merely a free-will trial trot for a record." "Neither," answered Si. "It's only a common, straight, every-day march out into the country. You kin count upon one a day like this for the rest o' your natural lives--I mean your service. It's part o' what you enlisted for. And this's only a beginnin'. Some days you'll have to keep this up 15 or 18 hours at a stretch." There was a general groan of dismay. "Gracious, I wish I'd wings, or that I'd enlisted in the cavalry," sighed Harry. "Brace up! Brace up!" said Shorty. "You'll soon git used to it, and make your 40 miles a day like the rest of us, carrying your bed-clothes and family groceries with you. It's all in gittin' used to it, as the man said who'd bin skinnin' eels for 40 years, and that now they didn't mind it a bit."