Trooper Tales — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

98 Red Brennan of the Seventh. how impish was the fury of their squaws, how terrible their numbers. And all cavalrymen forget the glasses in their hands while Dad Evans tells how the field looked, when he helped to bury the dead of Custer’s band way out in Montana on that hot June day. Ask any old cavalryman what kind of a fellow was the Michigan man whom the Sioux called Yellow Hair. He was a soldier they will say, not an indulgent officer, but one who feared nothing living or dead. It was Custer who declared: “Give me my regiment and I will lick the whole Sioux Nation.” Custer was tingling to make his name illustrious when he uttered those words. He was confident, experienced— a soldier born. He did not think then that his regiment of horsemen would ever be called the “Unlucky Seventh.” But all this has been committed to memory by school chil- cren. Here is the story of Red Brennan, deserter, once in I troop of Custer’s command, and long since dead—the story which Dad Evans tells. It is a true story, for Dad _ Evans, who saw it enacted, says so. ‘Brennan was a bad man. His worst enemies were whisky and himself. His bunk was deserted one morn- ing at reveille roll-call, and his troop was detached to hunt him up. The boys found him in a cave, to which they were led by an Indian scout. Brennan was helplessly obfuscated, probably through the medium of unmellowed corn-juice. The Indian scout shuffled about the cave feel- ing and smelling things. There were puzzling circum- GOMIiGdooks.coO