because the consequences of your staying here may be
serious to the army. How are you feeling yourself? Got any fever? Let me
see your tongue."

"What in the world's the matter with you?" asked Si in bewilderment.

"Come, don't waste any time asking questions," answered the nervous
little Surgeon. "There's more troops coming right along, and we mustn't
take any chances of their catching it."

"Ketch what? Great grief, ketch what?" groaned Si. "They've already
ketched everything in this mortal world that was ketchable. Now what are
they goin' to ketch?"

"Why, the smallpox, you dumby," said the Surgeon irritably. "Don't you
know that we are terribly afraid of a visitation of smallpox to the
army? They've been having it very bad in some places up North, and we've
been watching every squad of recruits from up there like hawks. A man
came down to Hospital Headquarters just now and reported that a dozen of
your boys had dropped right on the platform. He said that he knew
you, and you came from a place in Indiana that's being swept by the
smallpox."

[Illustration: SMALLPOX, YOUR GRANNY, SAID SI 237]

"Smallpox, your granny," said Si wrathfully. "There haint bin no
smallpox in our neighborhood since the battle o' Tippecanoe. The only
man there who ever had it fit in the battle under Gen. Harrison. He had
it when he was a child, and was so old that the pockmarks on him wuz
wore so smooth you could scarcely see 'em. Our neighborhood's so
healthy you can't even have a square case o' measles. Gosh darn it," Si
exploded, "what glandered fool was it that couldn't tell 'backer-sick
from smallpox? What locoed calves have you runnin' up to your
Headquarters bawlin' reports?"

"Sir," said the Surgeon stiffly, "you forget that you are speaking to
your superior officer."

"Excuse me. Doctor," said Si, recovering himself and saluting. "I'm very
hungry, and worried to death with these frisky kids that I'm trying to
git to my regiment. The only trouble is that some of the trundle-bed
graduates took their first chaw o' terbacker this mornin' on empty
stomachs and it keeled 'em over. Come here and look at 'em yourself.
You'll see it in a minute."

"Certainly. I see it very plainly," said the Surgeon, after looking them
over. "Very absurd to start such a report, but we are quite nervous on
the subject of smallpox getting down to the army.

"Take your men in and give them their breakfast, Sergeant, and they'll be
all right.

"Tha