The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-06-19

and Blue Army
and you will find all manner of dry statistics
and data concerning the relative values
and efficiency of the regular troops and
militia, the engineers, cavalry, artillery,
infantry and signal corps; and still more
about war balloons, military automobiles and
what not. But nowhere in the records will
you find so much as the name of Kitty Cowles,
yet Kitty Cowles was a potent factor in the
war, as might be testified by certain major
of cavalry, a captain of artillery and ser
geant of infantry.
Kitty declared early in the summer that
she had no desire to witness the maneuvers.
She was staying in the Thousand Islands
with her father, and one Major Dillon was
staying in the same place. The Major was
only National Guardsman-a major of
cavalry-but he waxed his mustaches and
signed himself "Maior Edward E. Dillon"
on hotel and club registers
The Major proposed that Kitty and her
father (they were rarely spoken of as Mr..
Cowles and his daughter) should run down
to the scene of the war game in their touring
car He intended taking part in the game
with his regiment, and was accordingly
sanguine of its success as an event of general
T.. .
Papa Cowles received the proposition with
enthusiasm. Having served three months
in border volunteer company at the time
of the Fenian Rebellion, he regarded himself
as military man. But any acceptance was,
Of course, contingent upon Kitty's ratifca-
ton, and she did not hesitate to declare the
maneuvers a stupid bore. She had seen
dress parade at West Point and the Preside,
the trooping of the colors at Malta, guard
mount at the Life Guards in London, and
the evolutions of the French troops around
Fontainebleau, so she really didn't care, she
said, about seeing lot of raw militia getting
whipped into shape by the unsympathetic
regulars.
The Major wasn't pleased or fattered
bit: he thought Kitty perverse young thing;
but golden-haired, blue-eyed perversity has a
charm of its own, and the Major was very
susceptible.
So it is almost certain that Kitty Cowles
wouldn't have seen the mimic war at all if
Billy Wyeth hadn't happened along about a
month before the outbreak. He came up the
st. Lawrence in mite OF motor boat, about
the size of the tender of Ma or Dillon's yacht,
and stopped off at just the right island with a
kit bag and tennis racket No one there had
ever seen him before, but he got on famously
from the start He was about as tall as
man likes to be, was not bald headed, had
clear gray eyes and decent features, and was
as we'll groomed as the next man. Kitty
had seen and danced with a hundred men as
handsome and clever, but for reasons I'M
known to philosophy or science, she dis
covered in him adorable traits hitherto I'M
known to her in the sex, and Immediately
found new and violent interest in tennis and
motor boats.
He only stayed two weeks, but Kitty called
him Billy when he left; and when it de-
veloped that his militia regiment was ordered
! to join in the maneWers, she announced
unblushingly that she and her father had al
ready planned to witness them. Oddly
enough, Major Dillon found no satisfaction in
her change of mind, but sulked for two days
and broadly published his opinion that Mr..
Wyeth was a common, impossible young
puppy.
Major Dillon motored down from Canada
with Kitty and her father, and joined his
regiment in the field near Boston.
( She early suggested taking steps to find
Billy Wyeth, but Mr. Cowles courageously
opposed such a project, dismissing Mr.
Wyeth with a sniff With bungling mascu-
line fingers he tried diligently to set his daugh-
ter's cap for the wealthy and dashing major,
but made sad exhibition of incapacity by
treating Mr.. Wyeth with a sniff.
Mr.. Cowles slept late o mornings, and the
very next morning his daughter set forth in
the motor, bright and early, in search of the
9TH Infantry, Company NJ in the Red
Army to which Sergeant Wyeth was
attached, with only a faithful French
chauffeur for escort. 1t was long way from
the hotel, but everyone was nice to Kitty and
everyone seemed to know exactly where the
9TH was located; so she found it at last,
drawn up in a shady lane awaiting orders.
After that the CowleS auto seemed to be
attached to the staff Of the 9TH. Itappeared
lowering about the column on the march, in
battle, and around the various camp sites.
II man fell i'll or struggled YEARLY in rear of
the column, he was picked up and borne along
In luxurious state to the next camp Kitty
was a modern valkyr watching over the
dusty heroes OF the Red Army Papa Cowles
appeared usually to be protesting earnestly
against the use to which his car was put, and
the red badges seemed to infame him with all
the traditional malignity of their sanguinary
color, but Kitty affected to receive the protests
Is tonvulsing manifestations of humor
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