Trooper Tales — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

INTRODUCTION. ix out of there alive. Some of the stories are spattered with the mud of Porto Rican hills, and are dark brown from the ' grisly pressure of Cuban sunshine—TI left friends (and I hope no debts) in both places. Only a few others re- main. These are yellow with guard-house coloring, be- cause I “‘soldiered”—well, all good soldiers have served time. It would arouse suspicion to declare that the accom- panying yarns are all true, but I’ll swear that I tried to make pictures of real American cavalrymen and their troop horses—and' the pictures were made mostly be- tween bugle-calls. I have tried to show that there are men in the ranks of Uncle Sam’s horsemen—wild, in- corrigible, splendid men! If I have made an inglorious fizzle of the task—well, I have “soldiered”’ in vain. Witt Levincton CoMFort. Eomichbooks (EO)