Si Klegg, Book 5

"Billings has gathered all his old friends about him," said he to himself. "I guess I'll find somebody here that I kin use."

"Hello, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler.

Shorty remembered him at once as the man with whom he had had the adventure with the loaded dice at Murfreesboro. With the fraternity of the class, neither remembered that little misadventure against the other. They had matched their wits for a wrestle, and when the grapple was over it was over.

Shorty therefore replied pleasantly:

"O, jest loafin' back here, gittin' well o' a crack on the head and the camp fever."

"Into anything to put in the time?"

"Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life in it."

"Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any money?"

"A hundred or so," answered Shorty.

"Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down this week."

"I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This Provost-Marshall—"

"O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin' right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little divvy whenever he asks for it."

"If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd—"

"Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock with him."

When seated at a quiet table, with their glasses in front of them, the gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o' that?"

Shorty read over laboriously:

"Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt this morning. Yores,

"Billings."

"That seems convincing," said Shorty.

"Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read:

"Deer Bat: Got yore $100 all right, but doant send by that man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it yourself, or put it in an envelope directed to me, & drop it in my box. Yores,

"Billings."

"That's enough," said Shorty, with his mind in a tumult, as to how he was to get these papers into his possession. "I'll go in with you, if you'll take me. Here's my fist."

He reached out and shook hands with Bat Meacham over the bargain, and called to the waiter, "Here, fill 'em up agin."

Shorty pulled some papers out of his pocket to search for his money, and fumbled them over. There were two pieces among them resembling the scraps on which Billings had written his notes. They contained some army doggerel which the poet of Co. Q had written and Shorty was carrying about as literary treasures.

The waiter wiped off the table as he replaced the glasses, and Shorty lifted up the gambler's papers to permit him to do so. He laid down his own papers instead, and with them a $10 bill.

"There," he said; "I find that's all the money I have with me, but it's enough to bind the bargain. I left a couple hundred with the clerk at the tavern. I'll go right up and git it, and we'll settle the thing right here."

"Very good," replied Bat Meacham; "git back as quick as you kin. You'll find me either here or hangin' around near. Let's fix the thing up and git ready. I think a new regiment'll be down here tomorrow, and all the men'll have their first installment o' bounty and a month's pay."

Shorty hurried back to Headquarters and laid his precious papers before the Chief Clerk, who could not contain his exultation.

"Won't there be a tornado when the General sees these in the morning," he exclaimed. "He's gone out to camp, now, or I'd take them right to him. But he shall have them first thing in the morning."

The next morning Shorty waited with eager impatience while the General was closeted with his Chief Clerk. Presently the General stepped to the door and said sternly:

"Corporal."

"Yes, sir," said Shorty, springing to his feet and saluting.

"Go down at once to the Provost-Marshal's office and tell Col. Billings to come to Headquarters at once. To come at once, without a moment's delay."

"Yes, sir," said Shorty saluting, with a furtive wink at the Chief Clerk, which said as plainly as words, "No presenting compliments this time."

He found Billings, all unconscious of the impending storm, dealing out wrath on those who were hauled before him.

"Col. Billings," said Shorty, standing stiff as a ramrod and curtly saluting, "the General wants you to come to Headquarters at once."

"Very well," replied Billings; "report to the General that I'll come as soon as I dispose of this business."

"That'll not do," said Shorty with stern imperiousness. "The General orders (with a gloating emphasis on 'orders') you to drop everything else, and come instantly. You're to go right back with me."

Shorty enjoyed the manifest consternation in Billings's face as he heard this summons. The men of the office pricked up their ears, and looked meaningly at one another. Shorty saw it all, and stood as straight and stern as if about to lead Billings to execution.

Billings, with scowling face, picked up his hat, buttoned his coat, and walked out.

"Do you know what the General wants with me. Shorty?" he asked in a conciliatory way, when they were alone together on the sidewalk.

"My name's Corporal Elliott. You will address me as such," answered Shorty.

"Go to the devil," said Billings.

Billings tried to assume a cheerfully-genial air as he entered the General's office, but the grin faded at the sight of the General's stern countenance.

"Col. Billings," said the General, handing him the two pieces of paper, "do you recognize these?"

"Can't say that I do," answered Billings, pretending to examine them while he could recover his wits sufficiently for a fine of defense.

"Don't attempt to lie to me," said the General wrathfully, "or I'll forget myself sufficiently to tear the straps from your disgraced shoulders. I have compared these with other specimens of your handwriting, until I have no doubt. I have sent for you not to hear your defense, or to listen to any words from you. I want you to merely sit down there and sign this resignation, and then get out of my office as quickly as you can. I don't want to breathe the same air with you. I ought to courtmartial you, and set you to hard work on the fortifications, but I hate the scandal. I have already telegraphed to Army Headquarters to accept your resignation by wire, and I shall send it by telegraph.

"I cannot get you out of the army too quickly. Sign this, and leave my office, and take off your person every sign of your connection with the army. I shall give orders that if you appear on the street with so much as a military button on, it shall be torn off you."

As the crushed Lieutenant-Colonel was leaving the office, Shorty lounged up, and said:

"See here. Mister Billings—you're Mister Billings now, and a mighty ornery Mister, too, I'm going to lay for you, and settle several little p'ints with you. You've bin breedin' a busted head, and I'm detailed to give it to you. Git out, you hound."

CHAPTER XI. SHORTY RUNS HEADQUARTERS

GETS ENTIRELY TOO BIG FOR HIS PLACE

THE disturbance in the Deacon's family when Shorty's note was delivered by little Sammy Woggles quite came up to that romance-loving youth's fond anticipations. If he could only hope that his own disappearance would create a fraction of the sensation he would have run away the next day. It would be such a glorious retribution on those who subjected him to the daily tyranny of rising early in the morning, washing his face, combing his hair, and going to school. For the first time in his life the boy found himself the center of interest in the family. He knew something that all the rest were intensely eager to know, and they plied him with questions until his young brain whirled. He told them all that he knew, except that which Shorty had enjoined upon him not to tell, and repeated his story without variation when separately examined by different members of the family. All his leisure for the next few days was put in laboriously constructing, on large sheets of foolscap, the following letter, in which the thumb-marks and blots were more conspicuous than the "pot-hook" letters:

dEER shoRty:

doNt 4git thAt REblE guN u promist mE.

thAir wAs An oRful time wheN i giv um yorE lEttEr.

missis klEgg shE cride.

mAriAr shE sEd did u EvEr No Ennything so Ridiklus.

si hE sed thAt shorty kood be morE Kinds ov fool in A minnit thAn Ary uthEr boy hE Ever node, Not bArrin Tompsons colt.

thE deAcon hE wAntid 2 go 2 the tranE & stop u. When hE found hE kooddEnt do that, hE wAntid 2 tElEgrAf 2 Arrest u & bring u bAk.

But si hE sEd bEttEr let u run till u got tirEd. Ude fEtch up sum whAir soon. Then thEy wood sHp a bridlE ovEr yore hEAd & brink u bAk.

i hAint told mAriA nothin but u hAd bEtEr sEnd thAt gun rite off.

ile look 4 it EvEry dAy til i git it.

mi pen iz bAd, mi ink iz pAle, send thAt gun & NEVEr f ALE.

YorEs, SAM.

As soon as he saw that he was likely to remain at Headquarters for some time. Shorty became anxious about that letter from Sammy, and after much scheming and planning, he at last bethought himself of the expedient of having the Chief Clerk write an official letter to Sam Elkins, the postmaster and operator at Bean Blossom Creek Station, directing him to forward to Headquarters any communications addressed to Corp'l Elliott, 200th Ind. Vols., and keep this matter a military secret.

In spite of his prepossessions against it, Shorty took naturally to Headquarters duty, as he did to everything else in the army. He even took a pride in his personal appearance, and appeared every morning as spick and span as the barber-shop around the corner could make him. This was because the General saw and approved it, and—because of the influence Maria had projected into his life. The Deacon's well-ordered home had been a revelation to him of another world, of which he wanted to be a part. The gentle quiet and the constant consideration for others that reigned there smoothed off his rough corners and checked the rasping of his ready tongue.

"I'm goin' to try to be half-white," he mentally resolved; "at least, as long's I'm north o' the Ohio River. When I'm back agin at the front, I kin take a rest from being respectable."

He was alert, prompt, and observant, and before he was himself aware of it began running things about the ante-rooms to Headquarters. More and more the General and Chief Clerk kept putting the entire disposal of certain matters in his hands, and it was not surprising that he acted at times as if he were the Headquarters himself, and the General and others merely attaches. Shorty always had that way about him.

"No, you can't see the General today," he would say to a man as to whom he had heard the General or the Chief Clerk hint was a bore, and wasted their time. "The General's very busy. The President's layin' down on him for his advice about a campaign to take Richmond by a new way, and the General's got to think at the rate of a mile a minute in order to git it off by telegraph."

"Here," to a couple of soldiers who came up to get their furloughs extended, "don't you know better than to come to Headquarters looking as if your clothes had been blowed on to you? How long've you bin in the army? Hain't you learned yit that you must come to Headquarters in full dress? Go back and git your shoes blacked, put on collars, button up your coats, and come up here lookin' like soldiers, not teamsters on the Tullyhomy mud march."

"No," very decisively, to a big-waisted, dark-bearded man; "you can't git no permit here to open no shebang in camp or anywheres near. Too many like you out there now. We're goin' to root 'em all out soon. They're all sellin' whisky on the sly, and every last one of 'em orter be in jail."

"Certainly, madam," tenderly to a poor woman who had come to see if she could learn something of her son, last heard from as sick in hospital at Chattanooga. "Sit down. Take that chair—no, that one; it's more comfortable. Give me your son's name and regiment. I'll see if we kin find out anything about him. No use seein' the General. I'll do jest as well, and 'll tend to it quicker."

"No," to a raw Captain, who strolled in, smoking a cheap cheroot. "The General's not in to an officer who comes in here like as if Headquarters was a ward caucus. He'll be in to you when you put on your sword and button up your coat."

It amused and pleased the General to see Shorty take into his hands the administration of military etiquette; but one day, when he was accompanying the General on a tour of inspection, and walking stiffly at the regulation distance behind, a soldier drunk enough to be ugly lurched past, muttering some sneers about "big shoulder-straps."

Shorty instantly snatched him by the collar and straightened him up.

"Take the position of a soldier," he commanded.

The astonished man tried to obey.

"Throw your chest out," commanded Shorty, punching him in the ribs. "Little fingers down to the seams of your pants," with a cuff at his ears. "Put your heels together, and turn out your toes," kicking him on the shin. "Hold up your head," jabbing him under the chin. "'Now respectfully salute."

The cowed man clumsily obeyed.

"Now, take that to learn you how to behave after this in the presence of a General officer," concluded Shorty, giving him a blow in the face that sent him over.

The General had walked on, apparently without seeing what was going on. But after they had passed out of the sight of the group which the affair had gathered, he turned and said to Shorty:

"Corporal, discipline must be enforced in the army, but don't you think you were a little too summary and condign with that man?"

"Hardly know what you mean by summary and condign. General, But if you mean warm by summary, I'll say that he didn't git it half hot enough. If I'd had my strength back I'd a' condigned his head off. But he got his lesson jest when he needed it, and he'll be condigned sure to behave decently hereafter."

Just then ex-Lieut.-Col. Billings came by. He was dressed in citizen's clothes, and he glared at Shorty and the General, but there was something in the latter's face and carriage which dominated him in spite of himself, his camp associations asserted themselves, and instinctively his hand went to his hat in a salute.

This was enough excuse for Shorty. He fell back until the General was around the corner, out of sight, and then went up to Billings.

"Mister Billings," said he, sternly, "what was the General's orders about wearin' anything military?"

"Outrageously tyrannical and despotic," answered Billings hotly. "But jest what you might expect from these Abolition satraps, who're throttlin' our liberties. A white man's no longer got any rights in this country that these military upstarts is bound to respect. But I'm obeyin' the order till I kin git an appeal from it."

"You're a liar. You're not," said Shorty, savagely.

"Why, what in the world have I got on that's military?" asked Billings, looking himself over.

"You're wearin' a military saloot, which you have no business to. You've got no right to show that you ever was in the army, or so much as seen a regiment. You salooted the General jest now. Don't you ever let me see you do it to him agin, or to no other officer. You musn't do nothin' but take off your hat and bow. You hear me?"

Shorty was rubbing it in on his old tormentor in hopes to provoke him to a fight. But the cowed man was too fearful of publicity just then. He did not know what might be held in reserve to spring upon him. He shambled away, muttering:

"O, go on! Grind down upon me. You'll be wantin' to send me to a Lincoln bastile next. But a day will come when white men'll have their rights agin."

Unfortunately for Shorty, however, he was having things too much his own way. There were complaints that he was acting as if he owned Headquarters.

Even the General noticed it, and would occasionally say in tones of gentle remonstrance:

"See here, Corporal, you are carrying too big a load. Leave something for the rest of us to do. We are getting bigger pay than you are, and should have a chance to earn our money."

But Shorty would not take the hint. With his rapidly-returning strength there had come what Si termed "one of his bull-headed spells," which inevitably led to a cataclysm, unless it could be worked off legitimately, as it usually was at the front by a toilsome march, a tour of hard fatigue duty, or a battle or skirmish. But the routine of Headquarters duties left him too much chance to get "fat and sassy."

One day the General and his staff had to go over to Louisville to attend some great military function, and Shorty was left alone in charge of Headquarters. There was nothing for him to do but hold a chair down, and keep anybody from carrying off the Headquarters. This was a dangerous condition, in his frame of mind. He began meditating how he could put in the idle hours until the General should return in the evening. He thought of hunting up Billngs, and giving him that promised thrashing, but his recent experience did not promise hopefully that he could nag that worthy into a fight that would be sufficiently interesting.

"I'd probably hit him a welt and he'd go off bawlin' like a calf," he communed with himself. "No; Billings is too tame, now, until he finds out whether we've got anything on him to send him to the penitentiary, where he orter go."

Looking across the street he noticed Eph Click, whom he had known as a camp-follower down in Tennessee, and was now running a "place" in the unsavory part of the town. Shorty had the poorest opinion of Eph, but the latter was a cunning rascal, who kept on the windy side of the law, and had so far managed to escape the active notice of the Provost-Marshal. He was now accompanied by a couple of men in brand-new uniforms, so fresh that they still had the folds of the Quartermaster's boxes.

"There goes that unhung rascal, Eph Glick," he said to himself, "that orter be wearin' a striped suit, and breakin' stone in the penitentiary. He's runnin' a reg'lar dead-fall down the street, there, and he's got a couple o' green recruits in tow, steerin' them to where he kin rob 'em of their pay and bounty. They won't have a cent left in two hours. I've bin achin' to bust him up for a long time, but I've never bin able to git the p'ints on him that'd satisfy the General or the Provo. I'll jest go down and clean out his shebang and run him out o' town, and finish the job up while the General and the Provo's over in Louisville. It'll all be cleaned up before they git back, and they needn't know a word of it. Eph's got no friends around here to complain. He's a yaller hound, that nobody cares what's done to him. It'll be good riddance o' bad rubbish."

He stalked out of the Headquarters, and beckoned imperiously to a squad that he saw coming down the street under the command of a Sergeant. Seeing him come out of Headquarters there was no question of his right to order, and the Sergeant and squad followed.

They arrived in front of Eph's place about the same time he did.

"Take that man," said Shorty, pointing to Eph, "and put him aboard the next train that goes out. Think yourself lucky, sir, that you git off so easily. If you ever show your face back here agin you'll be put at hard labor on the fortifications for the rest o' your natural life. Hustle him off to the depot, a couple of you, and see that he goes off when the train does. The rest o' you bring out all the liquor in that place, and pour it into the gutter. Sergeant, see that nobody's allowed to drink or carry any away."

Nothing more was needed for the crowd that had followed up the squad, anticipating a raid. Bottles, demijohns and kegs were smashed, the cigars and tobacco snatched up, and the place thoroughly wrecked in a few minutes.

Shorty contemplated the ruin from across the street, and strolled back to Headquarters, serenely conscious of having put in a part of the day to good advantage.

That evening the Provost-Marshal came into Headquarters, and said:

"I'm sorry, General, that you felt that Click place so bad that you were compelled to take personal action. I have known for some time that something ought to be done, but I've been trying to collect evidence that would hold Glick on a criminal charge, so that I could turn him over to the civil authorities."

"I do not understand what you mean, Colonel," answered the General.

"I mean that Glick place that was raided by your orders today."

"I gave no orders to raid any place. I have left all those matters in your hands, Colonel, with entire confidence that you would do the right thing."

"Why, one of my Sergeants reported that a Corporal came from your Headquarters, and directed the raid to be made."

"A Corporal from my Headquarters?" repeated the General, beginning to understand. "That's another development of that irrepressible Shorty." And he called:

"Corp'l Elliott."

"Yes, sir," responded Shorty, appearing at the door and saluting.

"Did you raid the establishment of a person named"

"Eph Glick," supplied the Provost-Marshal.

"Yes, Ephraim Glick. Did you direct it; and, if so, what authority had you for doing so?"

"Yes, sir," said Shorty promptly. "I done it on my own motion. It was a little matter that needed tending to, and I didn't think it worth while to trouble either you or the Provo about it. The feller's bin dead-ripe for killin' a long time. I hadn't nothin' else to do, so I thought I'd jest git that job offen my hands, and not to have to think about it any more."

"Corporal," said the General sternly, "I have not objected to your running my office, for I probably need all the help in brains and activity that I can get. But I must draw the line at your assuming the duties of the Provost-Marshal in addition. He is quite capable of taking care of his own office. You have too much talent for this narrow sphere. Gen. Thomas needs you to help him run the army. Tell Wilson to make out your transportation, so that you can start for your regiment tomorrow. The Provost-Marshal and I will have to try to run this town without your help. It will be hard work, I know; but, then, that is what we came into the service for."

Shorty grumbled to another Orderly as he returned to his place in the next room:

"There, you see all the thanks you git for bein' a hustler in the way of doin' your dooty. I done a job for 'em that they should've 'tended to long ago, and now they sit down on me for it."

CHAPTER XII. SHORTY ON A HUNT

GOES AFTER KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

THAT evening, as Shorty was gathering his things together, preparatory for starting to the front the next morning, Lieut. Bigelow, one of the General's young Aids, thrust his head through the doorway and said gleefully:

"Here, Corporal; I want you. I've got a great lark. Our Secret Service people report a bad lodge of the Knights of the Golden Circle out here in the country that threatens to make trouble. It is made up of local scalawags and runaway rebels from Kentucky and Tennessee. They have a regular lodge-room in a log house out in the woods, which they have fixed up into a regular fort, and they hold their meetings at nights, with pickets thrown out, and no end of secrecy and mystery. The General thinks that they are some of the old counterfeiting, horse-stealing gang that infested the country, and are up to their old tricks. But it may be that they are planning wrecking a train, burning bridges and the like. They've got so bold that the Sheriff and civil officials are afraid of them, and don't dare go near them. I've persuaded the General to let me take out a squad and jump them. Want to go along?"