"Now don't let this mishap trouble you, Regy. No harm has been done. Good will come of it. Now, good luck to you."
How much good was to be the result of that mishap Winthrop could never have guessed at the time. How much poor Shorty had lost through that storm, that morning mud ride, that arrest and incarceration and the consequent fatigue, he was to learn within another day.
CHAPTER XXII.
The general was an indignant man when, late that afternoon, he heard the details of Shorty's misadventures, but the general was just. He knew that battles had been lost and kingdoms ruined because of orders hastily or carelessly worded. He might have known, as he said to the staff when discussing the incident, that if he "told that little bunch of springs and impetuosity to stop for nothing and put him on a hard-mouthed horse of similar temperament, the provost guard wouldn't have a picnic." The general knew he could not ignore the authority of the provost-marshal, but he might have known that Shorty would be little apt to stop for sergeants, corporals, or privates when told to stop for nothing.
Only a day or two before several generals and their staffs had an amusing illustration of Shorty's immense conception of his official position. A big working party from the brigade was chopping trees in the woods a mile up the Potomac, and a big pleasure party from Washington was visiting General "Baldy" Smith on the opposite bank. For the entertainment and instruction of his guests this accomplished officer had ordered out a light battery, and with much precision that battery was driving shells into that very wood—and the axemen out. Bearing fragments of iron in his hands, the indignant officer in charge of the work galloped in to his general to say that his party had had to run for their lives, and the work was at a stand. Shorty's horse stood ready saddled, so the general bade the boy orderly carry the fragments, with his compliments, to General Smith, and tell him the battery was shelling his men, and Shorty and "Badger" went off like a shot. Over the Chain Bridge they tore, to the amaze and disgust of certain sentries long accustomed to halting everybody that didn't wear a star, and straight up to the brilliant group at head-quarters they galloped, and with scant apology and only hurried salute, the youngster panted his message and exhibited his collaterals. The general listened with unruffled calm, inspected a fragment or two with professional gravity and interest, noted the fresh powder black on the fracture and concave surface, passed them on to his visitors with some placid remark about the force of the bursting charge, and, to Shorty's unspeakable wrath, appeared to be in no wise impressed with the peril to which he had subjected the men of a comrade brigade, and even less with the presence of the bearer of the message. Shorty had counted on creating a sensation, and he and "Badger" were the only ones to show the least agitation. Bethinking himself of a supplementary remark of the officer who brought in the news—and the fragments, the lad returned to the attack. "One shell burst so close to Captain Wood's head it almost stunned him, sir."
"Ah, did it?" queried the general, with provoking calm. "And was nobody hurt?"
"Nobody was hit, sir," answered Shorty, with temper rising still higher. "But a dozen might have been."
"Ah, well, ride back and tell the general I'm glad nobody was hurt," was Baldy's imperturbable ultimatum, and the lad spurred back in a fury. Of course the firing was stopped, and later the generals grinned affably over the incident, but Shorty's self-esteem was ruffled, and he told the senior aide, to that officer's infinite delight, that further messages to General Smith would "better be carried by some other man on the staff," and of course that story went the rounds of both brigades, much to the merriment of many a camp-fire, but not altogether to Shorty's detriment.