You'd be detailed to work around the house here, and you'd look grand in uniform." "You think so ?" said Kettle, with a delighted grin, "I always did have a kinder honin' after them yaller stripes down my legs." "And a sabre and a sabretache," continued the Sergeant.

Times were sometimes dull at Fort Blizzard, and the men in the barracks could get a good many laughs out of Kettle as a soldier.
The yellow stripes down his legs and the sabre and sabretache were dazzling to Kettle, But an objection rose on the horizon.
"How 'bout them hosses ?" he asked, "I ain't never been on no hoss sence the time when I wuz a little shaver, and the Kun'l--he wasn't nothin' but a lieutenant then--wuz courtin' Miss Betty, and he pick me up and put me on a hoss he call Birdseye.

Lord! It makes me feel creepy now, to tink 'bout that hoss!" "Oh, you needn't bother about horses," answered the Sergeant, cheerfully.

"The Colonel could manage that, and you can wear your uniform just the same." "I reckon I could ride a gentle hoss," ventured Kettle.
"'Course," replied the Sergeant confidently, "I think I can manage it with the orficer in charge of mounts.

I could get the milkman's hoss for you.