174 



RECREA TION. 



front of the stage. This delayed the stage; 

 Sam couldn't make his schedule time and he 

 objected to taking the dust created by the 

 soldiers' team>. 



There was bad blood between our Ser- 

 geants and the employes of Barlow. San- 

 derson & Co. Quarrels were frequent and 

 the army officers stationed at the military 

 posts along the Arkansas stage route re- 

 ceived many complaints, some just and 

 some trivial, regarding the doings of our 

 enlisted men. Soldiers were not saints. 

 They would occasionally booze up, interfere 

 with stage passengers, maliciously disable a 

 Concord coach by abstracting some essential 

 portion of the running gear, halt on the 

 road — thus delaying the stage, or fabricate 

 Indian alarms, etc. Then the Lieutenant in 

 charge of that particular division of the stage 



route would be made to judge whether mil- 

 itary punishment should be meted out to a 

 corporal, and reparation made to the stage 

 company, or whether Sam or his colleagues 

 had made up a case out of sheer deviltry and 

 a desire to get even with a good soldier who 

 had simply obeyed his orders and refused 

 to let his mules go faster than the trot pre- 

 scribed by orders. 



In any case, our Infantrymen were blamed 

 by the stagemen. Just as sailors and ma- 

 rines are historically enemies, so it was 

 with Sam and the American Tommy Atkins. 



My Tommy Atkins in the years i867-'68 

 and, indeed, along into the eighties, when 

 he died with a medal of honor on his sol- 

 dierly breast, was Sergeant James Fegen, 

 Company " H," 3d regiment of Infantry, 

 United States Army. 



AX IDEAL POINT. 



Biggs — Is it true that Smith, the iceman, 

 is dead? 



Boggs — Yes, poor fellow. He cuts no 

 ice now. — Life. 



