e to make up for
their enforced good behavior.

"Sich a shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of
ther darned frenchy stuff--sich a rolling of drums and a damning of
officers, I ain't hear yit"--said the agent. "And they _does_ ride
more on the outside of the cars than the inside, anyhow."

Beyond Weldon a knot were balancing themselves on the connecting beams
of the box-cars. Warned by their officers, they laughed; begged by the
conductors, they swore. Suddenly there was a jolt, the headway of the
cars jammed them together, and three red-legged gentlemen were mashed
between them--flat as Ravel in the pantomime.

"And I'm jest a-thinkin'," was his peroration, "ef this yere reegement
don't stop a-fightin' together, being shot by the Georgians and beat by
their officers--not to mention a jammin' up on railroads--they're gwine
to do darned leetle sarvice a-fightin' of Yanks!"

After this period the agent talked, first to himself and then to the
black bottle; while I, seated on a box of cartridges, lit my pipe and
went into a reverie as to the treatment the surgeons would use in the
pneumonia sure to result from the leaks in the car.

In the midst of an active course of turpentine and stimulants, I was
brought to myself by a jolt and dead halt in mid-road. The engine had
blown off a nut, and here we were, dead lame, six miles from a station
and no chance of getting on.

My Express friend advised very quietly to "quit this and walk onter
Florence."

"'Taint but a small tramp after all," he said. "And ye'll jest catch
the A.M. up train and miss the sojers. Jest hand this yere to the A. &
Co.'s agent, and he'll help yer ef she's crowded. Here's luck!" and he
took a long pull at the bottle and handed it back--rather
regretfully--with a dingy note on the back of an Express receipt.

For the benefit of literature in ages yet unborn, I give a careful
transcription of this document:

_"Deer bil this gentilman Is a verry peerticular frend of
mine--also My brother-en-law. And you must give him sum Help ef he
needs any cos Our engen she's run of the track And I won't be long
afore to morrer._

_"Yours trewly,_

"GRIMES."

Thus armed, I shouldered my bag and started on my tramp over the wet
and slippery track, reaching Florence at gray dawn. As I came in sight,
there stood the train, the engines cold and fires unlit. I had full
time, but my good luck--the first since I started