The more I
looked the more it assumed the outlines of a man. Something glistens in
his eyes. Am I mistaken? Tut, tut, it's nothing but a stump; you are
getting demoralized. What! it seems to be getting closer. There are two
tiny specks that shine like the eyes of a cat in the dark. Look here,
thought I, you are getting nervous. Well, I can stand this doubt and
agony no longer; I am going to fire at that object anyhow, let come what
will. I raised my gun, placed it to my shoulder, took deliberate aim,
and fired, and waugh-weouw, the most unearthly scream I ever heard,
greeted my ears. I broke and run to a tree nearby, and had just squatted
behind it, when zip, zip, two balls from our picket post struck the tree
in two inches of my head. I hallooed to our picket not to fire that
it was "me," the videt. I went back, and says I, "Who fired those two
shots?" Two fellows spoke up and said that they did it. No sooner was
it spoken, than I was on them like a duck on a june-bug, _pugnis et
calcibus_. We "fout and fit, and gouged and bit," right there in that
picket post. I have the marks on my face and forehead where one of them
struck me with a Yankee zinc canteen, filled with water. I do not know
which whipped.
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