Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 by Frances Marie Antoinette Mack Roe
page 51 of 331 (15%)
page 51 of 331 (15%)
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steal the animals. The battalion of the --th Infantry had made only
two days' march from here, and the herders had just turned the horses and mules out to graze, when a band of Cheyenne Indians swooped down upon them and stampeded every animal, leaving the companies without even one mule! The poor things are still in camp on the prairie, waiting for something, anything, to move them on. General Phillips is mightily pleased that the Indians did not succeed in getting the animals from his command, and I am pleased that they cannot tease me any more. My ride with Lieutenant Golden, Faye's classmate, this morning was very exciting for a time. We started directly after stable call, which is at six o'clock. Lieutenant Golden rode Dandy, his beautiful thoroughbred, that reminds me so much of Lieutenant Baldwin's Tom, and I rode a troop horse that had never been ridden by a woman before. As soon as he was led up I noticed that there was much white to be seen in his eyes, and that he was restless and ever pawing the ground. But the orderly said he was not vicious, and he was sure I could ride him. He did not object in the least to my skirt, and we started off in fine style, but before we reached the end of the line he gave two or three pulls at the bit, and then bolted! My arms are remarkably strong, but they were like a child's against that hard mouth. He turned the corner sharply and carried me along back of the laundress' quarters, where there was a perfect network of clothes lines, and where I fully expected to be swept from the saddle. But I managed to avoid them by putting my head down close to the horse's neck, Indian fashion. He was not a very large horse, and lowered himself, of course, by his terrific pace. He went like the wind, on and up the hill in front of the guard house. There a sentry was walking post, and on his big infantry rifle was a long bayonet, and the poor man, in his desire to |
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