r, looking at me and laughing, "why do
you go around like a besum of destruction, wiping out armies, one man at
a time. You ought to be ashamed of myself, and you should be muzzled.

"Don't call me a female," said I, in my natural hoarse voice. "That is
something that I will not submit to."

The corporal looked up at me with one eye, the other being almost closed
from the effects of the fall of the brick house. He looked as though
he smelled woolen burning, as the old saying is. The officer said he
guessed he would take us all to headquarters, and inquire into the
affair. The corporal said that there was nothing to inquire into. That
this female came along and insisted on going outside of the lines, and
when he asked her, in a polite manner, to show her pass, she struck him
down with a billy, or some weapon she had concealed about her person.

"You are not much of a liar, either," said I, jumping on to my horse
astraddle, like a man.

The corporal looked at me as though he would sink, but he maintained
that he had done nothing that should offend the most fastidious female.
The corporal and his men mounted, and we all started for headquarters. I
rode beside the officer, and the corporal was right behind me. After we
had got started I pulled out my pipe, filled it, lit a match as soldiers
usually do, though it was quite unhandy, and began to smoke. As the
tobacco smoke rolled out under my veil, from the alleged rosebud mouth,
the scene was one that the corporal and the most of the men had never
thought of, though the officer was "on" all right enough. The corporal
could hardly believe his eyes, or one eye, for the other one had gone
closed. I was a fine enough looking female as we rode through the
regiment, except the pipe, which I puffed along just as though I had no
dress on. As we rode up to the colonel's tent, it was noised around that
a scout had captured a daring female rebel, and she had almost killed a
corporal, and the whole regiment gathered around the colonel's tent.

"What is the trouble, corporal?" asked the colonel of my black-eyed
friend.

"Well this woman wanted to go outside, and when I objected, she knocked
me down with a rail off a fence."

"And you offered her no indignity?" the colonel asked.

"Not in the least," said the corporal.

Then the colonel asked me to tell my story, which I did. The corporal
said it was a lie, but the other man, whom I did not hit, said I was
right.

"Can you dis