t's what I've bin tryin' to do for the last two hours," said Si,
as he saluted the Surgeon, departing with his ambulances and men.
"'Tention. Confound you, fall in in single rank, 'cordin' to size, and
do it in short meter, before anything else happens. Right dress! Front!
Without doublin', right face! Great Scott, what's the matter with you
roosters? Don't you know your right hands from your lefts? Turn around
there, you moon-eyed goshngs! Forward--file right--march!"

"Here, Sergeant," said a large man with three chevrons on his arm. "I
want to halt your men till I look 'em over. Somebody's gone through
a sutler's car over there on the other track and I think it was your
crowd. I want to find out."

"Halt nothin'," said Si, brushing him out of the way. "I'm goin' to
git these youngsters their breakfast before there's a tornado or an
earthquake. Go 'way, if you know what's good for you."

CHAPTER XVIII. NO PEACE FOR SI AND SHORTY

THE YOUNGSTERS KEEP THEM BUSY WHILE THE TRAIN MOVES SOUTH.

THE long fast had sharpened the zest the boys had for their first
"soldier-breakfast." Until they got down to "real soldier-living" they
could not feel that they were actually in the service. To have this
formal initiation in the historic city of Nashville, far in the interior
of the Southern Confederacy, was an exhiliarating event. The coarse fare
became viands of rare appetency.

"Gracious, how good these beans taste," murmured Harry Joslyn, calling
for a second plateful; "never knowed beans to taste so good before.
Wonder how they cook 'em? We'll have to learn how, Gid, so's to cook 'em
for ourselves, and when we git back home won't we astonish our mothers
and sisters?"

"And sich coffee," echoed Gid. "I'll never drink cream in my coffee
agin. I hadn't no idee cream spiled coffee so. Why, this coffee's the
best stuff I ever drunk. Beats maple sap, or cider through a straw,
all holler. That's good enough for boys. This 's what men and soldiers
drink."

"You know those old gods and goddesses," put in Montmorency Scruggs, a
pale, studious boy, for shortness called "Monty," and who had a great
likeness for ancient history and expected to be a lawyer, "drunk what
they called nectar. Maybe it was something like this."

"But we haven't had any hardtack yet," complained Albert Russell, a
youth somewhat finicky as to dress, and who had ambitions of becoming
a doctor. "They've only given us baker's bread, same as we got on the