ect matter of course, they walked right into the car with
him with no more trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay.

"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," remarked a quiet,
mild-mannered man in uniform, beside whom I happened to be standing. He
spoke with a slow, almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of
the supply company, and there were a number of things that were new to
him, as his story revealed. He was the first homesick horse doctor I
ever met.

"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me. "I went to a
veterinary college and had a nice little practice,--sorter kept myself
so busy that I never got much of a chance to think about this here war.
But one day, about two months ago, I got a letter from the War
Department down in Washington.

"They said the hoss doctor college had given them my name as one of the
graduates and the letter said that the War Department was making out a
list of hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank and send
it to Washington.

"'Joe,' my wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that the country is
paying to you. The Government just wants the names of the patriotic
professional citizens of the country.' So we filled out the blank and
mailed it and forgot all about it.

"Well, about two weeks later, I got a letter from Washington telling me
to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. It sorter scared the wife and me at
first because neither of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her
that I was sure it wasn't anything serious--I thought that Uncle Sam
just had some sick hosses down there and wanted me to go down and look
them over.

"Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and an extra pair of
socks in my hand satchel along with my instruments and I kissed her and
the little boy good-bye and told them that I would hurry up and
prescribe for the Government hosses and be back in about five days.

"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major shoved me into a
uniform and told me I was commissioned as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That
afternoon I was put on a train with a battery and we were on our way
east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We landed somewhere in France
and moved way out here.

"My wife was expecting me back in five days and here it is I've been
away two months and I haven't had a letter from her and now we're moving
up to the front. It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten
years, and I guess I am