te
one night! The court has thoughtfully excused me from going into the
court room, as I could only corroborate Faye's testimony. I am so
relieved, for it would have been a terrible ordeal to have gone in that
room where all those officers are sitting, in full-dress uniform, too,
and General Phillips with them. I would have been too frightened to have
remembered one thing, or to have known whether I was telling the truth
or not.

General Dickinson and Ben dark, his interpreter, came up in the
ambulance with us, and the poor general is now quite ill, the result of
an ice bath in the Arkansas River! When we started to come across on the
ice here at the ford, the mule leaders broke through and fell down
on the river bottom, and being mules, not only refused to get up, but
insisted upon keeping their noses under the water. The wheelers broke
through, too, but had the good sense to stand on their feet, but they
gave the ambulance such a hard jerk that the front wheels broke off more
ice and went down to the river bottom, also. By the time all this had
occurred, I was the only one left inside, and found myself very busy
trying to keep myself from slipping down under the front seat, where
water had already come in. General Dickinson and Faye were doing
everything possible to assist the men.

Just how it was accomplished would make too long a story to tell, but
in a short time the leaders were dragged out and on their feet, and the
rear wheels of the ambulance let down on the river bottom, and then we
were all pulled up on the ice again, and came on to the post in safety.
All but General Dickinson, who undertook to hold out of the water the
heads of the two leaders who seemed determined to commit suicide by
keeping their noses down, the general forgetting for once that he was
commanding officer. But one of those government mules did not forget,
and with a sudden jerk of his big head he pulled the general over and
down from the ice into the water, and in such a way that he was wedged
tight in between the two animals. One would have expected much objection
on the part of the mules to the fishing out of the general, but those
two mules kept perfectly still, apparently satisfied with the mischief
that had already been done. I can fancy that there is one mule still
chuckling over the fact of having gotten even with a commanding officer!
It is, quite warm now, and the ice has gone out of the river, so there
will be no trouble at th