They succeeded at last in getting through the fire-bordered road without an explosion, but they were all so exhausted that they could not move another step until they rested. The poor horse lay down and refused to get up.
FORE:"Stop that firing, or I'll kill every man in the house. If there's another shot fired we'll open on you and keep it up till you're every one dead. Surrender at once!"
FORE:"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."
FORE:"Wastin' good cast-iron on the landscape, as usual," laughed Shorty, to encourage the boys. "I always wonder how the rebels pick out the fellers they make cannoneers of. When they git hold of a feller who can't shoot so's to hit anything less'n a Township set up edgewise, they put him in the artillery."
FORE:"Here, what's all this disorder here," said the Orderly, coming up, impetuously, and as cross as any one. "Why don't you get into line as ordered? Sergeant Klegg, you're always making trouble for me."
FORE:"I tell you, you old fool," said the Deacon angrily, "I won't sell that pass for a mint o' money. Even if I wasn't goin' to see my son I wouldn't let you have it under any circumstances, to use in your traitorous business. Let go o' my coat, if you know what's good for you."
FORE:"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.""Orderly, we need some more cartridges," suggested Shorty.
It called to him, but not to him alone. He knew what he had to do. He felt the front of his body growing warm and then hot. He felt the first touch of the liquid.A second of silence went by. "I don't know, then," Norma said at last.He racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. There was a halo of unapproachableness about Maria Klegg that paralyzed him.