sing a corner on which stood
some ladies. Then he heard a voice which set his heart to throbbing call
out:

"Hello, Si Klegg! Si Klegg! Look this way. Where'd you come from?"

"Great Jehosephat! Maria!" said Shorty to himself. But he dared not take
his eyes a moment from the squad to look toward her.

CHAPTER XIV. GUARDING THE KNIGHTS

SI AND SHORTY STAND OFF A MOB AT THE JAIL.

HAVING seen their prisoners safely behind the bars, Si and Shorty
breathed more freely than they had since starting out in the morning,
and Si remarked, as he folded up the receipt for them and placed it in
his pocket-book:

"That drove's safely marketed, without the loss of a runaway or a
played-out. Purty good job o' drovin', that. Pap couldn't do better'n
that with his hogs. I'm hungrier'n a wolf. So must you be, Shorty. Le's
hunt up Maria, and she'll take us where we kin git a square meal. Then
we kin talk. I've got a hundred questions I want to ask you, but ain't
goin' to do it on an empty gizzard. Come on."

Shorty had dropped on to a bench, and fixed his eyes on the stone
wall opposite, as if desperately striving to read there some hint of
extrication from his perplexities. The thought of encountering Maria's
bright eyes, and seeing there even more than her sharp tongue would
express, numbed his heart.

"Yit, how kin I git away from Si, now?" he murmured to himself. "And
yit I'm so dead hungry to see her again that I'd be willin' to be a'most
skinned alive to do it. Was ever anybody else so big a fool about a
girl? I've plagued other fellers, and now I've got it worse'n anybody
else. It's a judgment on me. But, then, nobody else ever seen such a
girl as that. There's some sense in bein' a fool about her."

"Come on, Shorty," called Si from the door. "What are you dreamin' on?
Are you too tired to move? Come on. We'll have a good wash, that'll take
away some of the tiredness, then a big dinner, and a good bed tonight.
Tomorrer mornin' we'll be as good as new."

"I think I'd better git right on the next train and go back to
Jeffersonvillie," murmured Shorty, faintly struggling with himself.
"They may need me there."

"Nonsense!" answered Si. "We've done enough for one day. I've bin up
for two nights now, and am goin' to have a rest. Let some o' the other
fellers have a show for their money. We haint got to fight this whole
war all by ourselves."

"No, Si," said Shorty, summoning all his resolution; "I'm goin' back on
the