George at the Fort | Page 9

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 quarters, it was only that they might eat their dinner and take half an hour's breathing-spell preparatory to going through the same course of sprouts again in the afternoon. This routine was followed day after day until the members of the awkward squad were declared to be sufficiently drilled to warrant their appearance on dress-parade. After that they were assigned to the different troops (or companies) that stood the most in need of men, Bob, to his delight, finding himself in the same troop to which his new friend, Gus Robbins, belonged. But even then their troubles did not cease. Instead of drilling eight hours each day, they drilled six, and were obliged to do guard-duty besides. Among the three hundred and eighty men who composed the garrison there were not a few old soldiers who hated this hard work as cordially as some of the new-comers did, and there was a good deal of grumbling among them; but Bob Owens never uttered a word of complaint. Firmly adhering to the resolution he had made when he first enlisted, he set himself to work to learn just what was