ce. 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."

"Well, le's jog along," said Si. "We ought to git there in another hour.
There's a big rain comin' up, and we want to git under cover before it
strikes us. Forward!--March!"

But the rain was nearer that Si thought. It came, as the Spring rains
come in the North Georgia mountains--as if Niagara had been shifted into
the clouds overhead. The boys were literally washed off the road, and
clung to saplings to avoid being carried away into the brush.

"I'll fall back and keep the boys together," said Shorty, as soon as an
intermission allowed them to speak.

"Alright," said Si. "Look out for little Pete." And Si began to forge
stolidly ahead.

"Goodness, Sarjint, you're not going to travel in such a storm as this,"
gasped Gid Mackall.

"Certainly," Si called back. "Come on. We've got to reach that mill
tonight, no matter what happens. You'd might as well be drowned marchin'
as standin' still. 'Tain't rainin' no worse further ahead than here.
Forward!"

[Illustration: CLOSE UP, BOYS. 111]

"Close up, boys," said Shorty, taking little Pete's gun and the
youngster's hand. "This's only a Spring shower. 'Tain't nothin' to what
we had on the Tullyhomy Campaign. There the drops was as big as punkins,
and come as thick as the grains on a ear o' corn. Close up, there; dodge
the big drops, and go ahead."

"Hold on to me tight! Hold on to me!" clamored little Pete. "If you
don't I'll be washed away and lost for sure."

"Come along, Peter, my son," Shorty assured him.

"I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with
you."

The storm grew more violent every minute, limbs were torn from the
trees, and fell with a crash, and torrents rushed down from the mountain
side, across the road. Si strode on resolutely, as if the disturbance
were nothing more than a Summer zephyr. He waded squarely through the
raging streams, turning at times to help the next