"That's what you do," said Shorty, wiping off his musket. "That's the way you'll have to do most o' your fightin'. The miserabler you feel the miserabler you want to make the other fellers feel. Boys, turn your guns upside down and let the water run out. Then half-cock 'em, and blow into 'em to clean the water out o' the tubes. Then find a dry rag somewhere about you, and wipe off the nipples. We want every gun to go off when the order is given. Don't anybody load till Si gives the order."As he did so Si shot out his right arm and caught him around the neck with so quick and tight a hug that the rebel could not open his mouth to yell. Si raised his arm so as to press the rebel's jaws together, and with his left hand reached for his gun. The rebel swayed and struggled, but the slender Southerner was no match for the broad-shouldered Indiana boy, whose muscles had been knit by hard work.
ONE:"Well, I'll bet a hatful o' red apples," said Si, "that them was guerrillas that we saw, and they're makin' for this train. The rebels in Nashville somehow got information to 'em about it.""Can't have any, eh?" said Groundhog, swagger ing up. "We'll see about that, old man. I watched you givin' away to that nigger, and this little dead-beat here, but you hain't none to give me, who is doin' hard work for the army, and helpin' keep 'em from starvin'. If you've got enough for that nigger and that whinin' boy you've got enough for me, and I'm goin' to have it, for I need it."
If the walls obeyed, he might be able to tell them to go. They would move and he could leave and find Dara. Since it would not be for himself but for Dara, such a command might not count as an escape: the chain of obedience might work for him."Cesar's ghost. Shorty, how slow you are. Are you going to be all night getting up two or three tents? Get a move on you, now, for there's a rain coming up, and besides I want you for something else as soon's you're through with this?""Heah, we told you no politics. Git back thar, now, quick, or we'll bust your haid with this heah rock."Of course there was Norma, Dodd told himself.