"Finders is keepers," said Shorty, unbuckling the knapsack. "We'll just call this fair exchange for what we've throwed away in to-day's hustle. Let's open her up."
"Some new recruit's," said Si, as they examined the inside. "Looks like the one I packed from Injianny. What's this? I declare if it ain't a pair o' new shoes, and about my size; and some socks. I tell you, Shorty, I'm in luck."
He pulled the muddy socks off his shoeless foot, and drew on one of the warm, homemade affairs, and then the shoe. Both fitted well. He put on the other sock and shoe, and life at once seemed brighter.
"Shorty," said he, "I shouldn't wonder if I could find a blanket and an overcoat. You keep on holding that hole down, and I'll go out agin. I won't be gone long, for I'm dead tired. Just as soon as I find an overcoat or a blanket to put between us and the mud, I'll come back and we'll lay down. Every joint in me aches."
He started off less carefully this time. His new shoes made him feel more like walking. He was some distance from the regiment before he knew it. He found an overcoat. It had been trampled into the mud by thousands of passing feet, but still it was an overcoat, and it was not a time to be too nice about the condition of a garment. Presently he found a blanket in similar condition. He pulled on the overcoat, and threw the blanket over his shoulders. He felt warmer, but they were very heavy. Still, he thought he would go on a little ways farther, and perhaps he would find another overcoat and blanket, which would fix out both him and his partner.
All this time men were sweeping by him in companies, regiments and squads; batteries were moving in all directions, and mounted officers were making their way to and fro. Filling up the spaces between these were hundreds of men, single and in small groups, wandering about in search of their regiments, and inquiring of everyone who would stop to listen to them as to the whereabouts of regiments, brigades and divisions. No one could give any satisfactory information. Organizations which had formed a line two miles long in the morning had been driven back, frequently in tumult and disorder, for miles through the thickets and woods. Fragmentary organizations had been rallied from time to time. A fragment of a regiment would rally at one point with fragments of other regiments and make a stand, while other regiments would rally at widely-separated places and renew the fight, only to be pushed back again toward the Nashville Pike. Regiments and brigades that had remained nearly intact had been rapidly shifted from one point to another, as they were needed, until the mind could not follow their changes, or where nightfall had found them, or whither they had been shifted to form the new line.
At last Si succeeded in picking up another over coat and blanket out of the mud, and started to go back to the regiment.
But where was the regiment? He had long since lost all track of its direction. He had been so intent upon studying the ground for thrown-away clothing that he had not noticed the course he had taken.