at hump out o'
your shoulders. Put your heels together, all of you. Turn your toes out.
Put your little fingers down to the seams o' your pantaloons. Draw your
stomachs in. Throw your chests out. Hold your heads up. Keep your faces
straight to the front, and cast your eyes to the right until you kin see
the buttons on the breast o' the third man to your right. Come forward
until they're in line.

"Goodness," moaned some of the boys, as they were trying to obey what
seemed a' hopeless mass of directions, "do we have to do this every
mornin' before we kin have breakfast? We'll starve to death before we
git anything to eat. No use tellin' us to draw our stomachs in. They're
clean in to our backbones now."

"Mustn't talk in ranks, boys," Shorty kindly admonished. "It's strictly
agin' regulations. Straighten up, there, like soldiers, all o' you, and
git into a line. Looks like a ram's horn now. If the rebels'd shoot down
that line they wouldn't hit one o' you."

Jim Humphries, one of the medium-sized boys, suddenly turned as white
as a sheet and fell on the planks. One after another of those around him
did the same, until a half-dozen were lying there in a heap.

"What in the world's the matter?" asked Si, rushing up to them in
dismay.

"They're pizened, that's what they are," shouted Harry Joslyn.
"That guerrilla goin' over there pizened 'em. I saw him a-givin' 'em
something. He's tryin' to git away. Le's ketch him."

At the word the boys made a rush for the man who was quietly walking
off. As they ran they threw stones, which went with astonishing
precision and force. One of them struck the man on the head and felled
him. Then the boys jumped on him and began pounding and kicking him. Si
and Shorty came up, pushed off the boys and pulled the man to his feet.
He was terrified at the onset which had been made upon him, and could
not understand its reason.

"What've I done?" he gasped. "What're all yo'uns weltin' me for? I haint
no rebel. I've done tuk the oath of allegiance long ago."

"Now there'll be a hangin' sure," said Harry, in eager expectancy.

"What'd you do to them boys back there?" demanded Si.

"Didn't do nothin' to 'em. Sw'ar to God A'mighty I didn't."

"That telegraph pole will be just the thing to hang him on," suggested
Harry to Gid. "We could put him on a flat car and push the car out from
under him. I'll look around for a rope, Gid, and you git ready to climb
the pole."

"He did do something