"I s'pose you won't mind telling us what army you belong to, 'cause it mought make a difference in our calculations," added the spokesman. Tom did not know but that it might make some difference in his calculations, and for this reason he was exceedingly unwilling to commit himself before he ascertained upon which side his questioners belonged. "Can you tell me where I am?" asked Tom, resolved to use a little strategy in obtaining the desired information. "May be I can," replied the picket. "Will you do so?" "Sartin, stranger--you are in the woods," added Secesh; whereat his companions indulged in a wholesome chuckle, which assured Tom that they were human, and his hopes rose accordingly. "Thank you," replied Tom, with infinite good nature. "You say you belong to the army, and I say you are in the woods," said the soldier, repeating the double postulate, so that the essence of the joke should by no possibility fail to penetrate the cerebellum of his auditor. Tom was perfectly willing to acknowledge that he was in the woods, both actually and metaphorically, and he was very much disturbed to know how he should get out of the woods--a problem which has puzzled wiser heads than his, even in less perplexing emergencies. He was fearful that, if he declared himself to be a Union soldier, he should share the fate of others whom he had seen coolly bayoneted on that eventful day. "Now, stranger, s'pose you tell me what army you b'long to; then I can tell you where you are," continued the soldier. "What do you belong to?" asked Tom, though he did not put the question very confidently. "I belong to the army;" and the two other pickets honored the reply with another chuckle. "You can't fool old Alabammy." There was no further need of fooling "Old Alabammy," for the worthy old gentleman, symbolically represented by the rebel soldier, had kindly done it himself; and Tom then realized that he was in the hands of the enemy. It is true, the balance of the picket trio laughed heartily at the unfortunate slip of the tongue made by their companion, but Tom was in no condition to relish the joke, or he might perhaps have insinuated himself into the good graces of the jolly Secesh by repeating Pat's mysterious problem--"Tell me how many cheeses there are in the bag, and I'll give ye the whole five;" for, though this is an old joke in the civilized parts of the world, it is not at all probable that it had been perpetrated in the benighted regions of Secessia.