Up to the time of our arrival the Fort had not been occupied except by the officers and a few old service men from the Mexican border who were to act as non-commissioned officers while we were being trained. A few of the officers were at the post station and we—there were about 200 all told—were marched over to headquarters where the troop commanders were waiting for us.
Teamsters, horseshoers, clerks and recruits having other trades of a useful kind were picked from the bunch and assigned to troops. If I had wanted to I could have been a troop-clerk which carries with it a Corporal’s warrant but since I had enlisted I made up my mind to go in as a common trooper and get my share of riding and my fill of drilling—both of which I did—like the rest of them. So it came about I was assigned to M Troop, 315th Cavalry, U. S. A.
Now Wyoming is different from the Amazon country in that there are no trees and the ground is covered with short, sunburned buffalo grass. From the post I could see the Rocky Mountains a hundred miles away and from this you may conclude that after Nature got tired of making all the other countries she made Wyoming—but not so, for Arizona came after.
To make up for whatever the scenery may have lacked the post was a marvel and neither money nor labor had been spared to make it comfortable. I’ve been in apartment houses on Riverside Drive that couldn’t hold a candle to it. There were large two story brick barracks with big squad rooms where we bunked and a big mess hall where we ate. In front of the barracks was the drill ground and there for an hour and a half every morning we did the dismounted drill of the cavalryman and then the rest of the morning was given over to equitation, which in every day American means riding.
Our horses were of the genuine western variety and—woe be me—most of them had never been ridden before except once or twice perhaps, by the wranglers of the remount stations. This being true the eastern recruits spent the best part of the time between the horses’ backs, the air and finding a soft place to land. A fellow could lash himself to a stanchion in a submarine but never to the back of a bucking broncho.
Along about this time Cheyenne held its annual Frontier Day. This consists of gathering the best riders and ropers from all over the United States who compete for the glory there is in it though not overlooking the big purses offered. All through Frontier Day—or week, it should be called—Cheyenne slipped back half a century. The city was filled with booted and spurred cowpunchers from every ranching state in the Union. They wore sombreros and shirts of every color the rainbow affords. Then out at the race track at Frontier Park I saw such feats as squaw races, trick riding and fancy roping; roping, throwing and hog tying a steer in 23 seconds—the world’s record—and bull-dogging a steer. I pined for my old pal Bill Adams to see these landlubber stunts.
After four months of drill and riding, pistol and rifle practise on the target range, in fact just as we were beginning to consider ourselves old cavalrymen, we were given a sudden jolt by being told that no more cavalry would be sent overseas and that we would be changed to light field artillery. Now there are a couple of lines in an old army song that run like this:
“The Infantry for bravery,
The Artillery for slavery.”
We were a badly disappointed crew, but a good soldier is one who obeys orders no matter how tough they are and we were good soldiers. In due course of time we were shipped to West Point, Kentucky, where we were to receive our artillery training in seventy-two days and then go overseas.
Because I had been a wireless, or radio, operator as it is now more often called, and because wireless is an important part of artillery I was immediately picked to go to the radio-school. I laughed at the idea of my going to radio-school. What’s the use when I am already an expert operator and had been in the Navy? But I found out there were still a few things I could learn about wireless.