"It was a grand race. The whole post was there, and there was such
another whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying
down the turf and sailing over the hurdles--oh, beautiful to see!
Half-way down, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody's race and
nobody's. Then, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts
her head down to munch grass, with her broadside to the battalion,
and they a-coming like the wind; they split apart to flank her, but
SHE?--why, she drove the spurs home and soared over that cow like a
bird! and on she went, and cleared the last hurdle solitary and
alone, the army letting loose the grand yell, and she skipped from
the horse the same as if he had been standing still, and made her
bow, and everybody crowded around to congratulate, and they gave
her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and blew 'boots and
saddles' to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as you can't
think! And he said, 'Take Soldier Boy, and don't pass him back
till I ask for him!' and I can tell you he wouldn't have said that
to any other person on this planet. That was two months and more
ago, and nobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General
Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,-
-on whom be peace!"

"Amen. I listen--tell me more."

"She set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First
Battalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be
bugler, but they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler. So she
ranks her uncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier. And
doesn't she train those little people! Ask the Indians, ask the
traders, ask the soldiers; they'll tell you. She has been at it
from the first day. Every morning they go clattering down into the