. Louis, where I've bin deliverin' some timber in rafts."

"Where are you from?'

"Bad Ax, Wisconsin, a little ways from La Crosse."

It was Shorty's turn to start, and it flashed upon him just where he had
seen that squarish face. It was in an ambrotype that he carried in his
breastpocket. He almost choked on the merrythought of the chicken, but
recovered himself, and said quickly:

"I have heard o' the place. Lived there long?"

"Always, you might say. Father took me there as a child during the mine
excitement, growed up there, went into business, married, lost my wife,
and married again. We're now on what you might call our bridal tower. I
had to come down here on business, so I brung my wife along, and worked
it off on her as our bridal tower. Purty cute, don't you think?"

And he reached over and tried to squeeze his wife's hand, but she
repulsed it.

The bridegroom plied Shorty with questions as to the army for awhile
after they had finished eating, and then arose and remarked:

"I'm goin' into the smokin'-car for a smoke. Won't you come along with
me, soldier, and have a cigar?"

"No, thankee," answered Shorty. "I'd like to, awfully, but the doctor's
shut down on my smokin' till I git well."

As soon as he was well on his way the woman leaned forward and asked
Shorty in an earnest tone:

"Did you say that you belonged to the 200th Ind.?"

"Yes'm," said Shorty very meekly. "To Co. Q."

"The very same company," gasped the woman.

"Did you happen to know a Mr. Daniel Elliott in that company?"

"Very well, mum. Knowed him almost as well as if he was my own brother."

"What sort of a man was he?"

"Awful nice feller. I thought a heap of him. Thought more of him than
any other man in the company. A nicer man you never knowed. Didn't
drink, nor swear, nor play cards, nor chaw terbacker. Used to go to
church every Sunday. Chaplain thought a heap of him. Used to call him
his right bower--I mean his strong suit--I mean his two pair--ace
high. No, neither o' them's just the word the Chaplain used, but it was
something just as good, but more Bible-like."

"I'm so glad to hear it," murmured the woman.

"O, he was an ornament to the army," continued the unblushing Shorty,
who hadn't had a good opportunity to lie in all the weeks that the
Deacon had been with him, and wanted to exercise his old talent, to
see whether he had lost it. "And the handsomest man! There wasn't a
finer-looking man in the whole ar