"O, Mister Yank—Mister Conjure-man! don't put no spell on me. Pray to God, don't! I had one on me wunst, when I was little, and liked to've died from hit. I haint no real rebel. I wuz conscripted into the army, or I wouldn't be foutin' yo'uns. I won't fout no more, if yo'uns'll not put a spell on me. 'Deed I won't! I swar to God I wont!"
And he raised his right hand in testimony.
"Put a spell on you? Conjure you? What dumbed nonsense!" ejaculated Si, and then his eyes caught the rebel's fastened on the bottle in his hand, and a gleam of the meaning entered his mind. He had no conception of the dread the mountaineers have of being "conjured," but he saw that something about the bottle was operating terrifically on the rebel's mind and took advantage of it. He was in too much of a hurry to inquire critically what it was, but said: "Well, I won't do nothin' to you, so long's you're good, but mind that you're mighty good, and do just as I say, or I'll fix you. Git up, now, and take hold o' your pardner's feet, and help me lift him on the litter. Then you take hold o' the front handles. Monty, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, and take hold o' the rear handles. The two o' you carry this man back. Alf, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, put your arm under this man's, and help him along. I'll help this man."
They slowly made their way back toward the mill. As they came on the crest of the last rise, they saw Shorty and the rest eagerly watching for them. Shorty and the others ran forward and helped them bring the men in. Shorty was particularly helpful to the man he had shot. He almost carried him in to the mill, handling him as tenderly as if a child, fixed a comfortable place for him on the floor with his own blankets, and took the last grains of his coffee to make him a cup. This done, he said:
"I'm goin' out into the country to try and find some chickens to make some broth for you men. Come along, Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall and little Pete."
The country roundabout was discouragingly poor, and had been thoroughly foraged over. But Shorty had a scent for cabins that were hidden away from the common roads, and so escaped the visitations of ordinary foragers. These were always miserably poor, but generally had a half-dozen chickens running about, and a small store of cornmeal and sidemeat. Ordinarily he would have passed one of these in scorn, because to take any of their little store would starve the brood of unkempt children that always abounded. But now, they were his hope. He had been playing poker recently with his usual success, and as the bets were in Confederate money, he had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States." He would make some mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal, chickens and sidemeat. They would know where to get more, and so the transaction would be a pleasant one all around.
In the meanwhile, little Pete had visions of killing big game in the mountain woods. The interminable forest suggested to him dreams of bear, deer, buffalo, elk, and all the animals he had read about. It would be a great thing to bring down an elk or a deer with his Springfield rifle, and then be escorted back' to camp in triumph, with the other boys carrying his game. He kept circling through the woods, in sight or hearing of the others, expecting every minute to come upon some animal that would fill his youthful sanguine hopes.
Shorty at last found a poor little cabin such as he had been looking for. It was hidden away in a little cove, and had never been visited by the men of either army. It had the usual occupants—a weak-eyed, ague-smitten man, who was so physically worthless that even the rebel conscripters rejected him; a tall, gaunt woman, with a vicious shrillness in her voice and a pipe in her mouth; a half score of mangy yellow dogs, and an equal number of wild, long-haired, staring children. They had a little "jag" of meal in a bag, a piece of sidemeat, and a half-dozen chickens. The man had that morning shot an opossum, lean from its Winter fasting. Shorty rejected this contemptuously.
"I've bin mighty hungry in my time," said he, "but I never got quite so low down as to eat anything with a tail like a rat. That'd turn my stummick if I was famishin'."
The man looked on Shorty's display of wealth with lack-luster eyes, but his wife was fascinated, and quickly closed up a deal which conveyed to Shorty all the food that they had. Just as Shorty had completed payment, there came a shot from little Pete's rifle, and the next instant that youth appeared at the edge of the cornpatch extending up hill from the cabin, hatless, and yelling at the top of his voice. Shorty and the others picked up their guns and took position behind the trees.