He went back to where Si was disarming and searching Tingle. The prisoner had a United States musket, cartridge-box, canteen, and a new haversack, all of which excited Shorty's ire.
"You hound, you," he said, taking him by the throat with a fierce grasp, "you've bin bushwhacking, and got these things off some soldier you sneaked onto and killed. We ought to kill you right now, like we would a dog."
"No, Mister, I haint killed nobody; I swar t' God I haint," gurgled the prisoner, trying to release his throat from Shorty's grip.
"Where'd you git these things?" demanded Shorty.
"Mrs. Bolster gi' me the gun an' cartridge-box; I done found the canteen in the road, an' the poke with the letters in hit the Yank had done laid down beside him when he stopped t' git a drink, an' me an' Jim crep' up on him an' ordered him to surrender. He jumped an' run, an' we wuz af eared to shoot least we bring the rest o' the Yanks down onto us."
At the mention of letters Si began eagerly examining the contents of the haversack. He held some of them down to the light of the fire, and then exclaimed excitedly:
"Why, boys, this is our mail. It was Will Gobright they were after."
A sudden change came over Shorty. He took the prisoner by the back of the neck and ran him up to the door of the house and flung him inside. Then he hastened back to the fire and said:
"Le's see them letters."
A pine-knot had been thrown on the fire to make a bright blaze, by the light of which Si was laboriously fumbling over the letters. Even by the flaring, uncertain glare it could be seen that a ruddy hue came into his face as he came across one with a gorgeous flag on one end of the envelope, and directed in a pinched, labored hand on straight lines scratched by a pin. He tried to slip the letter unseen by the rest into his blouse pocket, but fumbled it so badly that he dropped the rest in a heap at the edge of the fire.