A few days before, Si, while passing near the hospital, saw a weak convalescent faint and fall. He rushed to the Surgeon's tent, and that officer being busy, handed him a small bottle with a metal top, and filled with strong ammonia, telling him to unscrew the top and hold the bottle under the man's nose. He did so, with the effect of reviving him. Si thrust the bottle into his pocket, to help the man back to the hospital, and forgot all about it, until one after another of his present patients overdid himself, had a relapse, and fainted away. Si happened to feel his bottle, drew it out, unscrewed the top, thrust it under their noses, and revived them.
Gabs's eyes opened wider at each performance. He had never seen a bottle with a metal top, or one that unscrewed, or anything that seemed to effect such wonderful changes by merely pointing it at a man. His mountaineer intellect, prone to "spells" and "charms," saw in it at once an instrument of morta: witchcraft. With a paling face, he began edging toward his gun. Busy as Si had been, he had kept constantly in mind the possibility of Gabe's attempting some mischief, and did not let himself lose sight of the rebel's gun. He quickly rose, and with a few strides, placed himself between Gabe and his gun.
"Where are you goin'?" he said sternly.
"I'm a-gwine away," replied the man, in terror-stricken accents. "I'm a-gwine away mouty quick. I don't want to stay here no longer."
"Indeed you're not goin' away. You'll stay right with us, and help us take care o' your comrades."
"I'm a-gwine away, I tell y'," shrieked Gabe. "I'm gwine right away. I'm skeered o' yo'uns. Yo'uns is no doctor, nor no sojer. Yo'uns is a conjure-man, and a Yankee conjure-man, too—wust kind. Yo'uns 've bin puttin' spells on them men, and yo'uns'll put a spell on me. I've felt hit from the fust. I'm a-gwine away. Le'me go, quick."
Si caught the man roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, and raised his right threateningly. It still had the bottle in it. "You're not goin' a step, except with us," he said. "Go back there, and 'tend to your business as I told you, or I'll break you in two."
The sight of the dreadful bottle pointed at him completely unnerved the rebel. He fell on his knees.