“I thought everybody had forgotten me, judging by my feelings. I am the worst disgusted cowboy that ever existed. Existed is right at the present. This is no life for a cowboy that has been used to doing as he pleases. Here you do as they please. They keep me walking all day long. They ball me out, and make me like it. I dassent fight and they wont let me leave. Say—what complexion is butter? I aint seen any sense I left Glacier. I’ve eat macaroni till I look like a Dago and canned sammin till I dassent cover up my head at night for fear I would smell my own breath. If this training camp don’t kill me there will be no chance for the Germans, but I’d sooner a German would get me than die by inches in this here sheep corral.”
When Toby and I reached the Park, I inquired for Bill from one of his buddies who was a guide that year, and learned that his fortunes had mended from this peak of depression. He had been transferred to the remount department, and when a mule broke his arm his homesickness departed, and he was filled with content. He even clamored to be sent over to “scalp a few Huns.”
“He did things anyone else would be court-martialed for,” his buddy related, “but Bill always had an alibi. When we were ordered out on a hike, Bill would go along, taking pains to march on the outside. When we came to a culvert, he would drop over the edge, hide awhile and go back to his bunk for the day. They never did find him out.
“The mud was a foot deep in the corral, and once when Bill was roping a mule, the mule got away, dragging Bill after. He splashed in, and when we see him again he was mud all over. And mad. The air was blue. He rushed into the Major’s office just as he was. The Major was a stiff old bird every one else was afraid of. But not Bill.
“‘Look at me,’ he sputtered. ‘Look at me!’ And then he swore some more. ‘Look at this new uniform!’
“‘What do you mean,’ says the Major, drawing himself up and gettin’ red in the face. ‘Are you drunk?’
“‘No,’ says Bill, very innocent, ‘do I have to be drunk to talk to you?’
“But he got his new uniform. Any of the rest of us would have been stood up against a wall at sunrise. Another time a consignment of shoes came in that was meant for a race of giants. None of us could wear them. Bill was awful proud of his feet, too. He swore he would get a pair to fit. So he put his on, and went to see the Major.
“‘Look at these shoes,’ he says.
“‘They look all right to me,’ says the Major. ‘Seems like a pretty good fit.’