Just then old Jones came out in his yellow coat and his pot hat, looking greatly more like a farmer than the wagon man did. Speaking through his nose, and with that extraordinary deliberation which always made his conversation a caricature of human speech, he asked: “What are you chargin’ for turkeys? What are you chargin’ for butter?” And so on through the list, receiving a reply to each query, and carefully noting it in his thoroughly organized mind. Then he turned to one of the men and said: “Send the regimental commissary to me.” When the commissary came he said to him: “Take these supplies, and distribute them equitably among the different messes according to their numbers.” By this time the farmer had become alarmed. He said: “Who’s goin’ to pay for all this?” “I am,” said old Jones. “In my own way.” “Well, hold on,” said the farmer. “No, I reckon we won’t hold on,” said old Jones. “But I’ll send for the colonel of the regiment,” said the farmer. Then old Jones replied with a relish: “I am the colonel of this regiment. And I have ordered these food supplies distributed to the men in the messes. The regimental commissary will obey my orders. And as soon as your wagon is emptied, you will get out of this camp in a considerable of a hurry,”--perhaps he used a shorter word than “considerable,”--“or I’ll hang you in front of headquarters. There’s no court of appeals in this camp. Now git!” as the last of the supplies were taken out of the wagon by the regimental commissary. We were all a little bit sorry that the poor farmer should lose his entire load. And yet we sympathized with old Jones’s remark as he walked away. “I’ll teach these thieves that they can’t loot a camp that I’m a runnin’.” A DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE Dick Fulcher was the best natured man in the battery, and he was nothing else. He was entirely ignorant and entirely content to be so. He could neither read nor write, and we could never persuade him to try to learn. He had nothing resembling pride in his composition apparently, nothing that it would do to call a character. One morning the alarm came that the enemy had landed below, and we were ordered hurriedly forward. Fulcher had just taken post as stable-guard, and was, therefore, under no obligation of duty to go. He quietly threw down the musket he was carrying, and, going up to the sergeant-major, said: “Major, can’t I be taken off guard? I want to go with the battery into the fight.” His request was granted, of course. He was number four at Joe’s gun; number four is the man who pulls the lanyard, or string, that fires the gun. When we unlimbered to the front on Yemassee Creek, within pistol-shot range of the advancing enemy, Fulcher was laughing as usual, and apparently as indifferent to the work he was doing as he had been to everything else, since we had first known him.