e stupendous
play. It was like peeping under the circus tent, when they were smaller,
and catching glimpses of the flying horses' feet.

And the questions they asked. Si had in a manner repelled them by his
curt treatment of Harry Joslyn, and his preoccupied air as he went back
and forth getting his orders and making preparations for starting. But
Shorty was in an affable mood, and by pleasantly answering a few of
their inquiries brought the whole fire of their questioning upon him.

"Are any o' them men you see over there guerrillas?" they asked.

"Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they're
peaceable citizens, though."

"How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"

"By the way they shoot at you. The peaceable citizens don't shoot--at
least, in day time and out in the open. They lay for you with
sole-leather pies, and chuck-a-luck boards and 40-rod whisky, and aid.
and abet the Southern Confedrisy that way. They get away with more
Union soldiers than the guerrillas do. But you can never tell what
an able-bodied man in Kentucky'll do. He may lay for you all day with
wildcat whisky, at $5 a canteenful, to git money to buy ammunition
to shoot at you at night. He's surer o' gittin' you with a canteen o'
never-miss whisky, but there's more healthy excitement about shootin' at
you from behind a bank. And his pies is deadlier'n his apple-jack. A man
kin git over an apple-jack drunk, but Kentucky pies 's wuss'n nux vomica
on fish."

"Mustn't we eat none o' their pies?" asked the boys, with longing
remembrance of the fragrant products of their mothers' ovens.

"Nary a pie. If I ketch a boy eatin' a pie after we cross the river I'll
buck-and-gag him. Stick to plain hardtack and pork. You'll git to like
it better'n cake by and by. I eat it right along in preference to the
finest cake ever baked."

Shorty did not think it necessary to mention that this preference was
somewhat compulsory.

"Why don't you hunt down the guerrillas and kill 'em off and be done
with 'em?"

"You can't, very well. You see, guerrilain' is peculiar. There's
somethin' in the air and water down in Kentucky and Tennessee that
brings it on a man. You'll see a plain farmer man, jest like them around
your home, and he'll be all right, goin' about his place plowin' and
grubbin' sprouts and tendin' to his stock, and tellin' you all the time
how much he loves the Union and how he and his folks always bin for
the Union. Next