On the Trail of Geronimo — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

fe) ON THE TRAIL OF GERONIMO. study, which grows harder each year. A score dropped out at the “exam.” six months later, and each semi-annual winnowing disposed of a few more, until over half the class had been “ found ” as it is termed. Those were trying days to Dick Whitcomb. He vibrated between the first and second section, but was haunted by the continual horror of land- ing at the bottom among the “immortals.” Not until he had entered upon his last year’s course, with his forty odd classmates, can it be said that all fear was removed, and that the real golden sun- light was undimmed by a cloud. Dick led the memorable last charge down the lower end of the Academy grounds, when his class, mounted on their fiery animals, thundered on a dead run from a point in front of the bar- racks almost to the steps of the hotel. It was a thrilling sight, as the forty odd cadets in uniform, yelling like wild Indians, and swing- ing their sabers first on one side of their steeds and then on the other, clove the skulls of imagi- nary foes crouching on the ground, with the foam flying from the mouths of the horses, whose blood was at fever heat, for they partook of the stirring Ccomnniclooolks (C@)