Trooper Tales — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

The Good Which Was in Him. 167 transport that the clerks in San Juan could not sort it all for the first day. One of the private letters which Allen received contained the following paragraph: “Oh, Jack, it’s come! I vowed I wouldn’t write you again until papa told me your discharge was on the way. Telegraph when you reach New York, and we'll all meet you at.the train. And, say, Jack, put on lots of warm things on the transport, because lots of poor boys have ' died of pneumonia from the sudden change of climate. I can hardly realize that you are coming back.” Down at the lonely stables that night the shapely geld- ing, Rio Grande, looked very wise and thoughtful. A certain big cavalryman stood at his head and said many things in a choking whisper. The west was streaked with dark red glory, but it was black and ominous beyond the mountains in the northwest. The swollen river boomed angrily down the trail. And the sentry walked his post and occasionally kicked up straggling bunches of hay closer to the picket line. “So it was the little woman who got the discharge, and I thought she—was—ashamed—to—write—to—me. Oh, well, the Kid is happy, anyway, and his mother will soon be happy, too. . . . I hope the little woman won't be angry because I did it. The Kid would probably be eating his heart out in the troop to-night if I had received her letter the same time as the discharge. But I guess I can stick it out all right. I can stand it all right, if she’ll write to me.” The big cavalryman walked back to the quarters, wi is- (CO)