yonet is pulled out, so that the man'll be certain to
die."

Naturally so diabolical an intention sent cold shivers down Si's back.

The night before Si left for "the front" he had taken his musket and
couterments home to show them to his mother and sisters--and the other
fellow's sister, whose picture and lock of hair he had safely stowed
away. They looked upon the bayonet with a dreadful awe. Tears came into
Maria's eyes as she thought of Si roaming about through the South like a
bandit plunging that cruel steel into people's bowels.

"This is the way it's done," said Si, as he charged about the room in an
imaginary duel with a rebel, winding up with a terrifying lunge. "Die,
Tur-r-rraitor, gaul durn ye," he exclaimed, for he was really getting
excited over the matter, while the girls screamed and jumped upon the
chairs, and his good mother almost fainted.

The attention that the 200th Ind. had to give to the bayonet drill
confirmed Si's deep respect for the weapon, and he practiced assiduously
all the "lunges," "parries," and "guards" in the Manual, in the hope
that proficiency so gained would save his own dearly-beloved hide from
puncture, and enable him to punch any luckless rebel that he might
encounter as full of holes as a fishing net.

[Illustration: WHAT THE BAYONET WAS GOOD FOR 033 ]

The 200th Ind.'s first fight was at Perryville, but though it routed the
rebel force in front of it, it would have taken a bayonet half-a-mile
long to touch the nearest "Johnny." Si thought it odd that the rebels
didn't let him get close enough to them to try his new bayonet, and
pitch a dozen or two of them over into the next field.

If the truth must be told, the first blood that stained Si's bayonet was
not that of a fellow-man.

Si Klegg's company was on picket one day, while Gen. Buell was trying to
make up his mind what to do with Bragg. Rations had been a little short
for a week or so. In fact, they had been scarcely sufficient to meet the
demands of Si's appetite, and his haversack had nothing in it to speak
of. Strict orders against foraging had been, issued. It was the day of
"guarding rebel onion patches." Si couldn't quite get it straight in his
head why the General should be so mighty particular about a few pigs and
chickens and sweet potatoes, for he was really getting hungry, and
when a man is in this condition he is not in a fit mood to grapple with
fine-spun theories of governmental policy.

So when a