roper report to you in ten minutes."

The adjutant general handed over my report, after asking how it happened
that the signature of the colonel and adjutant was on the ridiculous
report, and the adjutant and the red-headed recruit went out, mounted
and rode away. On the way the adjutant said, "I ought to kill you on the
spot. But I wont. You have only retaliated on us for playing them pants
on you. I hate a man that can't take a joke."

Then we made out a new report, and I took it to headquarters, and all
was well. But the adjutant was not as kitteny with his jokes on the
other fellows for many moons.

CHAPTER XV.

My Experience as a Sick Man--Jim Thinks I Have Yellow Fever--
What I Suffered--A Rebel Angel--I am Sent to the Hospital.

Up to this time I had never been sick a day in my life, that is, sick
enough to ache and groan and grunt, and lay in bed. At home I had
occasionally had a cold, and I was put to bed at night, after drinking a
quart of ginger tea, and covered up with blankets in a warm room, and I
was fussed over by loving hands until I got to sleep, and in the morning
I would wake up as fresh as a daisy, with my cold all gone. Once or
twice at home I had a bilious attack that lasted me almost twenty-four
hours; but the old family doctor fired blue pills down me, and I came
under the wire an easy winner. I did have the mumps and the measles, of
course before enlisting, but the loving care I was given brought me
out all right, and I looked upon those little sicknesses as a sort of
luxury. The people at home would do everything to make sick experiences
far from bitter memories. It was getting along towards Christmas of my
first year in the army, and though it was the Sunny South we were in, I
noticed that it was pretty all-fired cold. The night rides were full
of fog and malaria; and one morning I came in from an all-night ride
through the woods and swamps, feeling pretty blue. The mud around my
tent was frozen, and there was a little snow around in spots. As I laid
down in my bunk to take a snooze before breakfast, I noticed how awfully
thin an army blanket was. It was good enough for summer, but when winter
came the blanket seemed to have lost its cunning. I was again doing duty
as a private soldier, having learned that my promotion to the position
of corporal was only temporary. I had been what is called a "lance
corpora," or a brevet corporal. It seemed hard, after tasting of the
swe