was Will Gobright they were after."

A sudden change came over Shorty. He took the prisoner by the back of
the neck and ran him up to the door of the house and flung him inside.
Then he hastened back to the fire and said:

"Le's see them letters."

A pine-knot had been thrown on the fire to make a bright blaze, by the
light of which Si was laboriously fumbling over the letters. Even by the
flaring, uncertain glare it could be seen that a ruddy hue came into
his face as he came across one with a gorgeous flag on one end of the
envelope, and directed in a{238} pinched, labored hand on straight lines
scratched by a pin. He tried to slip the letter unseen by the rest into
his blouse pocket, but fumbled it so badly that he dropped the rest in a
heap at the edge of the fire.

"Look out, Si," said Shorty crossly, and hastily snatching the letters
away from the fire. "You'll burn up somebody's letters, and then
there'll be no end o' trouble. You're clumsier'n a foundered horse. Your
fingers are all thumbs."

"Handle them yourself, if you think you kin do any better," said Si,
who, having got all that he wanted, lost interest in the rest. If Si's
fingers were all thumbs. Shorty's seemed all fists. Besides, his reading
of handwriting was about as laborious as climbing a ladder. He tackled
the lot bravely, though, and laboriously spelled out and guessed one
address after another, until suddenly his eye was glued on a postmark
that differed from the others. "Wis." first caught his glance, and he
turned the envelope around until he had spelled out "Bad Ax" as the rest
of the imprint. This was enough. Nobody else in the regiment got letters
from Bad Ax, Wis. He fumbled the letter into his blouse pocket, and in
turn dropped the rest at the edge of the fire, arousing protests from
the other boys.

"Well, if any o' you think you kin do better'n I kin, take 'em up. There
they are," said he. "You go over 'em, Tom Welch. I must look around a
little."

Shorty secretly caressed the precious envelope in his pocket with his
great, strong fingers, and pondered as to how he was going to get an
opportunity to read the letter before daylight. It was too
sacred{239} and too sweet to be opened and read before the eyes of his
unsympathetic, teasing comrades, and yet it seemed an eternity to wait
till morning. He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye at Si, who
was going through the same process, as he stood with abstracted air on
the o