n't gonna do you no good," Webb told him sourly. "Theah ain't nothin'
in the pot, nor no pot neither--'less Kirby 'membered to stow it last
time. Lordy, m' back an' m' middle are clean growed together, seems
like."

"Feast your eyes, man! Jus' feast your eyes!" Kirby unrolled his prized
coat. In its folds was a greasy package which did indeed give up a
treasure--a good four-inch-thick slab of bacon squeezed in with a block
of odd, brownish-yellow stuff.

They crowded around, dazzled by the sight of bacon, real bacon. Then
Drew pointed at the accompanying block.

"What's that? New kind of hardtack?"

"Nope. That theah's vegetables." Kirby spoke with authority.

"Vegetables?"

"Yeah. These heah Yankee commissaries bin workin' out new tricks all th'
time. They takes a lot of stuff like turnips, carrots, beets, all such
truck, an' press it into cakes like this. 'Course you have to be
careful. I heard tell as how one blue belly, he chawed the stuff dry an'
then drank water; it bloated him up like a cow in green cane. Poor
fella, he jus' natchelly suffered from bein' so greedy. But you drop it
in water an' give it a boil...."

"Looks like hay," Drew commented without enthusiasm. He picked it up and
sniffed dubiously.

"Man," Webb said, "if the Yankees can eat hay, then we can too. An' I'm
hungry 'nough to chaw grass, were you to show me a tidy patch an' say go
to it! How come you know all 'bout this hay-stuff, Anse?"

"We found some of it on the _Mazeppa_. The lieutenant told us how it
worked--"

"The _Mazeppa_!" Webb breathed reverently, and there was a moment of
silence as they all recalled the richness of that capture. "We shore
could do with another boat like that one. Too bad this heah crick ain't
big 'nough to float a nice bunch of supplies in, right now."

Kirby produced the pail dedicated to the preparation of coffee. But
since coffee was so far in the past they could not even remember its
smell or taste, no one protested his putting the vegetable block to the
test by setting it boiling in the sacred container.

"Don't look like much." Webb fanned away smoke to peer into the pail.
Kirby had also produced a skillet, made from half of a Yankee canteen,
into which he was slicing the bacon.

"It's fillin'," he retorted sharply. "An' you didn't pay for it, did
you? A man who slangs th' cook--an' the grub--now maybe he ain't gonna
find his plate waitin' when it's time to eat--"

Webb drew back hurriedly. "