LOST IN A MAZE OF RAILROAD TRAINS.
"WHAT'S the program?" Si inquired of the conductor, as the boys were being formed on the bank, preparatory to entering the cars. "I s'pose it's to go over there and put in a week o' hard work rebuildin' that bridge. Have you got any axes and saws on the train? How long is the blamed old bridge, anyway?"
"Not much it ain't," responded the conductor. "If you think the army's goin' to wait a week, or even a day, on a bridge, you're simply not up to date, that's all. The old Buell and Rosecrans way o' doin' things is played out since Sherman took command. Your Uncle Billy's a hustler, and don't let that escape your mind for a minute, or it'll likely lead you into trouble. You'll find when you get down to Chattynoogy that nobody's asleep in daylight, or for a good part o' the night. They're not only wide-awake, but on the keen jump. The old man kin see four ways at once, he's always where he ain't expected, and after everybody with a sharp stick. In Buell's time a burnt bridge 50 foot long 'd stopped us for two weeks. Now that bridge 'll likely be finished by the time we git there. I've just been over there, and they were layin' the stringers."
"Why, how in the world did they manage?" asked Si.
"O, Sherman's first move was to order down here duplicates for every bridge on the road. He's got 'em piled up at Louisville, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Chattynoogy. The moment a bridge is reported burned a gang starts for the place with another bridge, and they're at work as soon's it's cool enough to let 'em get to the abutments. I've seen 'em pullin' away the burnin' timbers to lay new ones. They knowed at Chattynoogy as soon's we did that the bridge was burned. The operator at the next station must 've seen it and telegraphed the news, and they started a bridge-gang right out. I tell you, double-quick's the time around where old Cump Sherman is."
"Duplicate bridges," gasped Si. "Well, that is an idee."
"What does he mean by duplicate, Corpril?" asked Harry Joslyn to Shorty.
"O, duplicate's something that you ring in on a feller like a cold deck."
"I don't understand," said Harry.
"Why—hem—hem—duplicate's the new-fangled college word for anything that you have up your sleeve to flatten a feller when he thinks he's got you euchered. You want to deal the other feller only left bowers and keep the right bowers for yourself. Them's duplicates. If you give him aces, have the jokers handy for when you want 'em. Them's duplicates. Duplicates 's Sherman's great lay—learned it from his old side-partner, Unconditional Surrender Grant—just as strategy was old McClellan's. There's this difference: Sherman always stacks the deck to win himself, while McClellan used to shuffle the cards for the other feller to win."
"Still I don't understand about the duplicate bridges," persisted Harry.
"Why, old Sherman just plays doublets on the rebels. He leads a king at 'em and then plumps down an ace, and after that the left and right bowers. They burn one bridge and he plumps down a better one instead. They blow up a tunnel and he just hauls it out and sticks a bigger one in its place. Great head, that Sherman. Knows almost as much as old Abe Lincoln himself."
"Do you say that Sherman has extra tunnels, too, to put in whenever one is needed?" asked Harry, with opening eyes.
"O, cert," replied Shorty carelessly. "You seen that big iron buildin' we went into to git on the cars at Louisville? That was really a tunnel, all ready to be shoved out on the road when it was needed. If you hadn't bin so keen on the lookout for guerrillas as we come along you'd 'a' seen pieces o' tunnels layin' all along the road ready for use."
As the train dashed confidently over the newly-completed bridge the boys gazed with intense interest and astonishment at the still smoldering wreckage, which had been dragged out of the way to admit the erection of the new structure. It was one of the wonders of the new, strange life upon which they were entering.
The marvelous impressiveness and beauty of the scenery as they approached Chattanooga fascinated the boys, who had never seen anything more remarkable than the low, rounded hills of Southern Indiana.
The towering mountains, reaching up toward the clouds, or even above them, their summits crowned with castellated rocks looking like impregnable strongholds, the sheer, beetling cliffs, marking where the swift, clear current of the winding Tennessee River had cut its way through the granite walls, all had a deep fascination for them. Then, everywhere were strong intrenchments and frowning forts, guarding the crossings of the river or the passages through the mountains. There were populous villages of log huts, some with canvas roofs, some roofed with clapboards, some with boards purloined from the Quartermaster's stores. These were the Winter quarters of the garrisons of the fortifications. Everywhere men were marching to and fro, and long trains of army wagons struggling through the mud of the valleys and up the steep hillsides.
"My, what lots o' men," gasped Harry Joslyn. "We won't be once among sich a crowd. Wonder if Sergeant Klegg and Corpril Elliott kin keep us from bein' lost?"
"Trust Corpril Elliott," said Gid, returning to his old partisanship of the taller veteran. "He knows his business every time."
"Not any better'n Sergeant Klegg," responded Harry, taking up the gantlet for his favorite. "Long-legged men are very good in their way, but they don't have the brains that shorter men have. Nature don't give no man everything. What she gives to his legs she takes off his head, my dad says."
"That's just because you're a duck-legged snipe," answered Gid wrathfully. "Do you mean to?"
"Don't make any slurs at me, you spindle-legged sand-hill crane," retorted Harry.............