"GREAT Jehosephat, how hungry I am," suddenly ejaculated Shorty, stopping his cheering, as the thunder of the guns died away into an occasional shot after the rebels galloping back to the distant woods on the ridge from which they had emerged.
"I must make some coffee. Wonder where I put my matches?"
"Here, Pete," continued Shorty, as he broke off some splinters from the rails and started a little fire, "take my canteen and Si's and yours, and run down there and find a spring, and fill 'em, before the others make a rush. Be spry about it, for there'll be a rush there in a minute, and you won't have no chance."
The excited boy had to be spoken to a second time before he would come back to earth, much less comprehend the want of water and food. Like the rest of his companions, the terrific drama which had just been enacted had wrought him to a delirium, in which he could think of nothing but a world full of bellowing cannon, and a nightmare of careering, plunging horses, with savagely-yelling riders.
They could not realize that the battlecloud had rolled away just as suddenly as it had burst upon them, and they stood there tightly grasping their reloaded guns, and staring fixedly into the distance for the next horrid development.
"I think you'll find a spring right over there where you see that bunch o' young willers, Pete," said Si, handing him his canteen. "Break for it, before anybody else gets there and muddies the water."
But Pete still stood rigid and unhearing, clutching his gun with a desperate grip, and glaring with bulging, unmoving eyes across the plain.
"Come, wake up, Pete," said Shorty, giving him a sharp shake. "Do as I tell you, and on the jump. The fight's over."
"The fight's over?" stammered the boy. "Ain't they coming back again?"
"Not on their butternut-dyed lives they ain't," said Shorty scornfully. "They've got their dirty hides as full o' lickin' as they kin hold for one day. They'll set around for a while, and rub their hurts, and try to think out jest how it all happened."
"Skip out, Pete," Si reminded the boy. "The rest o' you boys stack your guns and foller Pete."
"Hadn't we batter take our guns along?" suggested Monty, holding on to his with grim fearfulness.
"No. Stack 'em; stack 'em, I tell you," said Si impatiently. "And be quick about it. They'll all git ahead o' you. Don't you see the rest stackin' arms?"
The boys obeyed as if dazed, and started to follow little Pete's lead toward the clump of willows.
The boy, full of the old nick, found an Orderly's horse nipping the grass close by the path to the spring and, boy like, jumped on its back. The clatter of the canteens frightened the horse, and he broke into a dead run.
Little Pete's Horse Bolts. 169
"Do ye s'pose the fight's really over?" whispered Pete to Alf Russell, who was just behind him. "Don't you think the rebels just let go to get a fresh hold?"
"Seems so to me," answered Alf. "Seems to me there was just millions of 'em, and we only got away with a little passel, in spite of all that shootin'. Why, when we come out on the ridge the valley down there seemed fuller of 'em than it was at first."
"We oughtn't to get too far away from our guns," said Monty Scruggs. "Them woods right over there may be full o' rebels watching to jump us when we get far enough away."
"I don't like the looks of that hill to the left," said Gid Mackall, nervously. "An awful lot o' them went behind it, and I didn't see any come out."
"There, them bushes over there are shaking—they're coming out again," said Harry Joslyn, turning to run back for his gun.
"No, not there," nervously interjected Humphrey's, turning with him; "ain't there something stirring down there by the crick?"
"No, no," said Sandy Baker, desperately. "It's just that blame fool Pete. Come on! Come on! We've got to. We were ordered to. Le's make a rush for it, like the men in the Indian stories done when they was sent for water."
They acted on the suggestion with such vim that when Pete's horse tripped at the edge of the little run, and sent Pete over its head with a splash into the mud and water, the rest tumbled and piled on top of him.
The men on the hill, who had noticed it, set up a yell of laughter, which scared the boys worse than ever, for they thought it meant the rebels were on them again.
"Now, what new conniption's struck them dumbed little colts?" said Si, irritably, as he strode down to them, pulled them out, and set them on their feet, with a shaking and some strong words.
"Is the rebels coming again?" gasped Pete, rubbing the mud and water out of his eyes.
"No, you little fool," said Si. "The rebels ain't comin'. They're goin' as fast as their horses kin carry 'em. They've got through comin' for today.
"There ain't one of 'em within cannon-shot, and won't be till we go out and hunt 'em up again. You've come near spilin' the spring with your tormented foolishness. What on earth possessed you to climb that boss? You need half killin', you do. Go up higher there and fill your canteens from where the water's clear. Be slow and careful, and don't rile the water. Say, I see some nice sassafras over there. I always drink sassafras tea this time o' year. It cleans the blood. I'm goin' over and see if I can't git a good root while you're fillin' your canteens."
Si walked out some distance in front of them, pulling as he walked some of the tender, fragrant, spicy young leaves of the sassafras, and chewing them with gusto. Arriving at the top of a rise he selected a young shrub, pulled it up, carefully loosed its root from the mulchy soil, and cut it off with his knife. His careless deliberation calmed the overwrought nerves of the boys, and when he returned they had their canteens filled, and walked back composedly to the fires, when they suddenly remembered that they were as hungry as Si and Shorty, and fell to work cooking their suppers.
"Is that the way with the rebel cavalry?" asked Monty Scruggs, with his mouthful of crackers and meat. "Do they co............