MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

The First Sergeant, hanging up the receiver, went out and gathered his men.Still the storm was raging. Icy snow, blinding sheets of sharp-fanged smother, rode on theracing wind. Worse overhead, worse underfoot, would be hard to meet in years ofwinters.But once again men and horses, without an interval of rest, struck into the open country.Once again on the skeleton bridge they made the precarious crossing. And so, at a quarterto nine o'clock at night, the detail topped Greensburg's last ice-coated hill and entered theyard of its high-perched Barracks.As the First Sergeant slung the saddle off John G.'s smoking back, Corporal Richardson,farrier of the Troop, appeared before him wearing a mien of solemn and grieveddispleasure."It's all very well," said he,—"all very well, no doubt. But eighty-six miles in twenty-fourhours, in weather like this, is a good deal for any horse. And John G. is twenty-two yearsold, as perhaps you may remember. I've brought the medicine."Three solid hours from that very moment the two men worked over John G., and when, attwelve o'clock, they put him up for the night, not a wet hair was left on him. As they