George at the Fort | Page 9

quarters, barracks, store-houses and stables
were built in the same manner. On the outside of the parade were long
rows of stately cottonwood trees, interspersed with shrubs and flowers.
In one corner, on the right-hand side of the principal gate, was the well
that supplied the garrison with water, and in the other was the flagstaff,
from which floated the Stars and Stripes.
"Emblem of liberty!" said Gus with a sneer as he pointed up at the
flag--"emblem of tyranny, rather."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Bob quickly.
"Oh, you will find out before you have been here long," replied Gus,
shaking his head and looking very wise. "A bigger lot of tyrants than

the officers who command us were never crowded into any one post."
"Perhaps you don't do your duty as well as you might?" mildly
suggested Bob.
"I know I don't. I do no more than I am obliged to do, I tell you, and for
the simple reason that I didn't enlist to act as lackey to a lot of
shoulder-straps. I am just as good as they are, but they say I am not.
Why, the last time the paymaster was here his little snipe of a clerk
remarked in my hearing that enlisted men were nothing more than
servants to the officers. What do you think of that?"
Bob did not know what to think of it, so he said nothing in reply. He
simply resolved that he would not pass judgment upon his superiors
until he had had some experience with them himself.
"This is by no means the gloomy place that I expected to find it," said
Bob as he and Gus resumed their walk.
"Oh, the fort itself is good enough," replied Gus; "it's the people who
live in it that I object to. If one could pick his own company, and could
do as he pleased, he might manage to live here for a few years very
comfortably; but we have to associate with some rough characters there
in the barracks, and the officers hold us with our noses close to the
grindstone all the time. They look upon a private as little better than a
dog, and they'll slap him into the guard-house on the slightest
provocation. Now, this is one of the stables; it will accommodate
seventy horses. Those you see in here are blooded animals, and they
belong to the officers. The government horses are always picketed
outside, except when there is danger of a visit from the raiders, and
then they are brought in for safe-keeping. Now, take a good look at the
stable, and then come out and take another look at the stockade. Every
night there are two sentries placed over this stable--one at the front, and
the other at the rear, between the stable and the stockade--and a guard
sleeps inside. Would you believe that, after all these precautions, it
would be possible for anybody to come into the fort and steal a horse?"
Bob said he would not.

"Well, it was done not more than two weeks ago," continued Gus. "One
stormy night these two logs were removed from the stockade, and four
of the best horses in the stable were run off. It must have taken hours to
do the work, and although the sentries were changed while it was going
on, no one knew that a theft had been committed until the next
morning."
"Who did it?" inquired Bob.
"A couple of Comanches, who were surprised and killed by the squad
that was sent in pursuit of them. The Comanches are acknowledged,
even by the Indians themselves, to be the most expert horse-thieves on
the Plains. Why, one night, when a scouting-party to which I was
attached were in camp and fast asleep, a Comanche crept up and stole
the lieutenant's horse; and in order to do it he had to cut the lariat that
was tied to the officer's wrist. He got away with the horse, and never
awoke one of us."
Gus Robbins had accumulated an almost inexhaustible fund of such
anecdotes as these during his two and a half years of army-life, and he
related a good many of them to Bob while they were walking about the
fort examining the different objects of interest. From some of them Bob
gained a faint idea of what might be in store for himself.
The next morning the newly-arrived recruits were formed into an
awkward squad and turned over to the tender mercies of a grizzly old
sergeant, who proved to be anything but an agreeable and patient
instructor. He drilled them for four hours without allowing them a
single moment's rest, abusing them roundly for every mistake they
made; and when at last he marched them to their