CHAPTER XVII. THE FRIGHTENED SURGEON
SI AND SHORTY HAVE A TIME WITH THEIR WILD, YOUNG SQUAD.
MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.
"How in the world'd we ever git clean through the State without the least bit o' trouble?" asked Harry Joslyn, as they stood together on the platform awaiting the return of Si and Shorty, who had gone to see about their breakfast. "It was fight from the word go with the other men from the minute they struck Kentucky."
"Probably it was Corpril Elliott's good management," suggested Gid Mackall, whose hero-worship of Shorty grew apace. "I tell you there aint a trick o' soldierin' that he aint up to."
"Corpril Elliott's?" sneered Harry Joslyn. "You're just stuck on Corpril Elliott. If it was anybody's good management it was Sargint Klegg's. I tell you, he's the boss. He got shot through the breast, while Corpril Elliott only got a crack over the head. That settles it as to who's the best soldier. I'm kind o' sorry that we didn't have no trouble. Mebbe the folks at home'll git the idea that we skulked and dodged."
"That's so," accorded the others, with a troubled look.
"But we are now in Tennessee," chirped in Gid Mackall hopefully. "That's ever so much worse'n Kentucky. We must come to rebels purty soon now. They won't let so many reinforcements git to Gen. Thomas if they kin help it." And Gid looked around on his companions, as if he thought their arrival would turn the scale and settle the fate of the Confederacy. "They'll probably jump us just as soon as we leave town. Them big forts on the hills mebbe keeps them outside now, but they're layin' for us just beyond. Wonder if we'll git our guns here? Mebbe that's what the Sargint and Corpril's gone for."
"They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile."