ves to your car. We're goin' to start
now. Here," he continued to the two men, "is a dollar. Take your pies
and dig out. Don't attempt to sell any o' them pies to these boys, or
I'll hang you myself, and there won't be no foolishness about it. Git
back to your car, boys."

"There won't be no hangin', and we won't git none o' the pies,"
complained the boys among themselves. "Sargint Klegg's gittin'
overbearin'. What'd he interfere for? Them fellers was guerrillas, as
sure as you're born, just as Corpril Elliott described 'em before we
crossed the river."

CHAPTER XVII. THE FRIGHTENED SURGEON

SI AND SHORTY HAVE A TIME WITH THEIR WILD, YOUNG SQUAD.

MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in
Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody
ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.

"How in the world'd we ever git clean through the State without the
least bit o' trouble?" asked Harry Joslyn, as they stood together on the
platform awaiting the return of Si and Shorty, who had gone to see about
their breakfast. "It was fight from the word go with the other men from
the minute they struck Kentucky."

"Probably it was Corpril Elliott's good management," suggested Gid
Mackall, whose hero-worship of Shorty grew apace. "I tell you there aint
a trick o' soldierin' that he aint up to."

"Corpril Elliott's?" sneered Harry Joslyn. "You're just stuck on Corpril
Elliott. If it was anybody's good management it was Sargint Klegg's. I
tell you, he's the boss. He got shot through the breast, while Corpril
Elliott only got a crack over the head. That settles it as to who's the
best soldier. I'm kind o' sorry that we didn't have no trouble. Mebbe
the folks at home'll git the idea that we skulked and dodged."

"That's so," accorded the others, with a troubled look.

"But we are now in Tennessee," chirped in Gid Mackall hopefully. "That's
ever so much worse'n Kentucky. We must come to rebels purty soon now.
They won't let so many reinforcements git to Gen. Thomas if they kin
help it." And Gid looked around on his companions, as if he thought
their arrival would turn the scale and settle the fate of the
Confederacy. "They'll probably jump us just as soon as we leave town.
Them big forts on the hills mebbe keeps them outside now, but they're
layin' for us just beyond. Wonder if we'll git our guns here? Mebbe
that's what the Sargint and Corpril's gone for."

"They said they were go