enty of
time, for your lives may pay the penalty!" I had been feeling for some
days as though there was not the utmost confidence in my bravery, among
the men, and I had been studying as to whether I would desert, and
become a wanderer on the face of the earth, or do some desperate deed
that would make me solid with the boys, and when the captain called for
volunteers, I swallowed a large lump in my throat, and said, "Captain,
_here is your mule_. I will go!" Whether it was that confounded meat I
had eaten that had put a seeming bravery into me, or desperation at
the hunger of the past few days, I do not know, but I volunteered for
a perilous mission. A little Irishman named McCarty spoke up, and said,
"Captain, I will go anywhere that red headed recruit will go."

So it was settled that McCarty and myself should go, and with some
misgivings on my part we rode up to the front and reported. I thought
what a fool I was to volunteer, when I was liable to be killed, but I
was in for it, and there was no use squealing now. We came to a cross
road, and the captain whispered to us that we should camp there, and
that he had been told by a reliable contraband that up the cross road
about two miles was a house at which there was a sheep, and he wanted us
to go and take it. He said there might be rebels anywhere, and we were
liable to be ambushed and killed, but we must never come back alive
without sheep meat. Well, we started off. McCarty said I better ride a
little in advance so if we were ambushed, I would be killed first, and
he would rush back and inform the captain. I tried to argue with McCarty
that I being a recruit, and he a veteran, it would look better for him
to lead, but he said I volunteered first, and he would waive his rights
of precedence, and ride behind me. So we rode along, and I reflected on
my changed condition. A few short weeks ago I was a respected editor of
a country newspaper in Wisconsin, looked up to, to a certain extent, by
my neighbors, and now I had become a sheep thief. At home the occupation
of stealing sheep was considered pretty low down, and no man who
followed the business was countenanced by the best society. A sheep
thief, or one who was suspected of having a fondness for mutton not
belonging to him, was talked about. And for thirteen dollars a month,
and an insignificant bounty, I had become a sheep thief. If I ever run
another newspaper, after the war, how did I know but a vile contemporar