s left, loadin' my gun, an' tryin' to keep up with the
Colonel's hoss. Next thing I knowed I wuz wakin' up at the foot of a
black-oak. Everything was quiet around me, except the yellin' of two or
three wounded men a little ways off. At first I thought a cannonball'
d knocked my whole head off. Then it occurred to me that if my head was
knocked off I couldn't hear nor see."

"Nor think, even," injected Shorty.

"No, nor think, even. For what'd you think with?"

"I know some fellers that seem to think with their feet, and that blamed
awkwardly," mused Shorty.

"I kept on wakin' up," continued Si. "At first I thought I had no head
at all, an' then it seemed to me I was all head, it hurt so awfully. I
couldn't move hand nor foot. Then I thought mebbe only half my head was
shot away, an' the rest was aching for all.{120}

"I tried shuttin' one eye an' then the other, an' found I'd at least both
eyes left. I moved my head a little, an' found that the back part was
still there, for a bump on the roots of the oak hurt it.

"By-and-by the numbness began to go out of my head an' arm, but I was
afraid to put my hand up to my head, for I was afraid to find out how
much was gone. Nearly the whole of the left side must be gone, an' all
my schoolin' scattered over the ground. I lay there thinkin' it all over
how awful I'd look when you fellers came to find me and bury me, an' how
you wouldn't dare tell the folks at home about it.

"Finally, I got plum desperate. I didn't seem to be dyin', but to be
gettin' better every minute. I determined to find out just however much
of my head was really gone. I put up my hand, timid-like, an' felt my
forehead. It was all there. I passed my hand back over my hair an' the
whole back of my head was there. I felt around carefully, an' there was
the whole side of my head, only a little wet where I'd got a spent ball.
Then I got mad an' I jumped up. Think of my makin' all that fuss over a
little peck that might have been made by a brick-bat. I started out to
hunt you fellers, an' here I am."

"Yes, but you wouldn't 've bin here," philosophized Shorty, examining
the wound, "if the feller that fired that shot'd given his gun a little
hunch. If that bullet'd went a half-inch deeper, you'd be up among the
stars a bow-legged Wabash angel."

"Well, we've licked the stuffin' out of 'em at last, haven't we?" asked
Si.

"Well, I should say we had," replied Shorty with an impressive whistle.
"I though