.OTAy.NTY4MDA

12.

tossed me the first lift." Turk was brought back to the field by a stable guard and Merrill mounted him remarking to the platoon "I will now show you how this horse should be handled." And Turk nolens valens was made to take all his gaits and turns in the school. There were a few severe struggles but the horse had found his master and apparently submitted. This seeming acquiescence was however a ruse, probably for deliberation. Having reached the conclusion that as he could not, in this instance, leave his rider behind, he would take him with him. he suddenly took the bit with his teeth and left the track on a tangent at the top of his speed for the stables. A part of the way there ran along the crest of a slope which curved around the head of an arroyo. As Turk was racing along this he suddenly doubled? like a fox at right angles and Merrill taken off his guard went down the slope in a series of slides and tumbles. It was an unwritten law of the Mounted Service that any officer who was fairly thrown should forfeit a case of wine. Merrill called at the sutlers on his way to his quarters and ordered a case, wherewith the wind of chaff was tempered to his ruined uniform.

paragraph symbol The regulations and customs of the service at that time had not been relieved of the brutal punishment of whipping for desertion and I remember the abhorrence with which I witnessed two