Charles A Curtis

Captured by the Navajos Charles A Curtis

At breakfast, the adjutant chancing to sit near me, I asked him who the youthful soldiers were. "They are the sons of Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, Corporals Frank and Henry," he replied. "They hold honorary rank, and are attached to head-quarters, acting as messengers and performing some light clerical work." "How do they happen to be in Santa Fé?" "Mother recently died in the East, and the colonel had them sent here in charge of a tutor who is to fit them for college, I believe." Later, on the same day, being desirous of looking over this ancient Indian and Mexican town, I was making a pedestrian tour of its streets, and chanced to be opposite San Miguel School in the eastern section during the pupils' recess. Half a dozen boys were engaged in throwing the lasso over the posts of the enclosing fence, when suddenly from a side street appeared the young corporals whom I had seen at reveille. The Mexican boys instantly greeted them with derisive shouts and jeers. They called them little Gringos and other opprobrious names, and one young Mexican threw the loop of his lasso over the smaller corporal's head and jerked him off his feet.