The boys preferred the tops of the cars to the inside, and scattered themselves along the length of the train to view the war-worn country of which they had heard so much from their relatives who had campaigned there. Si settled himself down in the car to read the morning papers which he had gotten in Nashville, and Shorty, producing a pack of new cards, began a studious practice, with reference to future operations in Chattanooga.
The train was slowing down for the bridge near Lavergne, when there came a single shot, followed by a splutter of them and loud yells.
Exceedingly startled, Si and Shorty sprang up, seized their guns, bounded to the door and looked out. They could see nothing to justify the alarm. There was not a rebel, mounted or unmounted, in sight. In the road below were two or three army teams dragging their slow way along, with their drivers yelling and laughing at a negro, whose mule was careering wildly across the fenceless field. The negro had been apparently jogging along, with a collection of plunder he had picked up in an abandoned camp strung upon his mule, when the latter had become alarmed at the firing and scattered his burden in every direction. The rider was succeeding in holding on by clinging desperately to the mule's neck.
Si set his gun down and clambered up the side of the car.
"What's all that shootin' about?" he demanded of Harry Joslyn.
"I didn't mean it, sir," Harry explained. "I was just aiming my gun at things I see along the road—just trying the sights like. A turkey-buzzard lighted on a stump out there, and I guess I must have forgot myself and cocked my gun, for it went off. Then Gid, seeing me miss, tried to show he was a better shot, and he banged away and missed, too, and then the other boys, they had to try their hands, and they belted away, one after another, and they all missed. I guess we didn't count as we ougther've done on the goin' forward o' the train, because we all struck much nearer than we expected to that nigger on a mule, and scared his mule nigh out o' his skin. We really didn't intend no harm."
"Where did you git catridges?" demanded Si.
"Why, that box that Alf Russell got was half full. He tried to keep 'em all hisself, and intended to shoot 'em off, one by one, to make the rest of us envious. Alf always was a pig in school, and never would divide his apples or doughnuts with the other boys. But we see them almost as quick as he did, an' Gid and me set down on him suddently, as he was lying on the roof, and took away all his catridges, and give 'em around to the rest o' the boys, one a-piece."