d for some weeks. Still, it isn't right to send off so
important a train without any protection."

"Only be too glad of the dooty, sir," answered Si, saluting. "It'll
give the boys something to think of besides hanging guerrillas. Besides,
they're just crazy to git hold o' guns. Where kin I git muskets for
'em?"

"March them right over to that shed there," said the Major, "and the
Quartermaster will issue them muskets and equipments, which you can turn
over again when you reach Chattanooga. Good-by. I hope you'll have a
pleasant trip. Remember me to the boys of the old brigade and tell them
I'll be with them before they start out for Atlanta."

"Purty slouchy bizniss that, givin' these kids guns before they've had
any drill at all--don't know even the facin's, let alone the manual of
arms," remarked Shorty doubtfully, as they marched over to the shed.
"They'll be shooting holes through each others' heads and the tops o'
the cars, and'll waste more ammynition than a six-mule team kin haul.
They'll make a regler Fourth o' July from here to Chattynoogy."

"Don't be worried about them boys," Si reassured him. "Every one of 'em
is used to handlin' guns. Then, we kin keep the catridges ourselves and
not issue any till they're needed, which they mayn't be."

The boys were in a buzz of delight at getting the guns they had so
longed for, and Si's first duty was to end an exuberant bayonet fencing
match between Gid and Harry which was imitated all along the line.

"Stop that," he called. "Put your minds to learnin' to load and shoot
first. It'll be some time before you git a chance to prod a rebel with a
bayonet. Rebels are as wild as crows. You'll be lucky to git as close to
'em as the other side of a 40-acre field."

"But s'posin' a rebel runs at you with his bayonet," expostulated Harry
Joslyn, "oughtn't you to know how to ward him off and settle him?"

"The best way's to settle him jest as he comes over the hill,
half-a-mile away, with an ounce o' cold lead put where he lives. That'll
take the pint offen his bayonet mighty certainly."

Si and Shorty showed the boys how to put on the belts carrying the cap-
and cartridge-boxes, and gave them a little dumb-show instruction in
loading and firing, ending with exhibiting to them a cartridge, and the
method of tearing it with the teeth and putting it in the gun.

"Now give us some catridges," clamored the boys, "and let us do some
real shooting."

"No," said Si; "we'll