The next evening as I was passing the colonel's quarters on my way to
deliver a message to the hospital, I heard him remark to another
officer, "Major, don't you think it is strange that the papers received
to-day make no mention of that frightful report received-here yesterday
morning relative to the supposed massacre of the 6th and 9th Cavalry?"
No, the major didn't think it a bit strange. Maybe he knew that
newspaper stories should be taken _cum grano salis_, and then maybe he
knew me.
There were no more "fake reports" from that office.
CHAPTER XXII
PRIVATE DENNIS HOGAN, HERO
It was while I was sitting around a barrack-room fire that I picked up
the following story. There were a number of old soldiers in my
company--men who had served twenty-five years in the army--and their
fund of anecdote and excitement was of the largest size.
On Thanksgiving Day, 187--, Private Dennis Hogan, Company B, 29th United
States Infantry, the telegraph operator at Fort Flint, Montana, sat in
his dingy little "two by four" office in the headquarter building,
communing with himself and cussing any force of circumstances that made
him a soldier.
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