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The War Department decided to attempt a change in the bore of the Enfield so that it would use Springfield cartridges, and to make other minor simplifications and improvements. The experiment proved successful to the highest degree. The modified Enfields were reported to be only slightly inferior to the Springfields and by the end of December, 1917, five thousand a day were being turned out.
"I haven't the most remote doubt of it," said Natalie, with a smile, "and his name neatly lettered inside it with gilt paint!" The long, enclosed racks at the ends of the drill-room were open now, and the electric light winked upon the barrels of the Springfields, as busy, white-gloved hands plied the polishing cloths along them.
Unfortunately there was little hope of expanding the production of Springfields sufficiently to meet the necessities of the new National Army. For several years previous to 1917 the Government, with myopic vision, had cut down expenditures for the manufacture of small-arms and ammunition, with the result that artisans skilled in making Springfields had been scattered.
It was eight hundred yards away in the dazzling light of the rising sun. Old Springfields did not carry as do the modern arms. Soldiers of those days were not taught accurate shooting as they are now. It was too far for anything but chance, and all within a minute or two the direful tragedy was over, and the red warriors had darted back behind the ridge from which they came.
We explained, or tried to explain to him, that the Springfield through which he had passed and the Springfield to which he was writing were in different States widely separated, and that there were also several other "Springfields." To this he demurred, protesting that it made matters quite confusing to foreigners to have the same names repeated in different parts of the Country.
The girls would sit on the buffalo head and we would draw them along the ice. That was one of our greatest pleasures. I was about fifteen years old when I first went on the war trail. It was in the winter time and I was on foot. I used a bow and arrows and my arrows were not very good. The young fellows who went with me had old Springfields, using powder and bullets.
Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he united with Webb, who led his own and the Beecher squadron, making eighteen companies, or troops, of Horse, with their pack mules, all out at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly guarded by a big battalion of sturdy infantry, nearly all of them good marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors made only one essay in force, and that was more than enough.
And there's one good point about Springfields, they make a devil of a noise and that's all you need for a starter, noise enough to break into headlines all over the world as a 'Brave Little Rebel Army. If you can do that, and the word goes around on the quiet that you're using American rifles well, there's a kind of a sentiment in our trade you'll find us all behind you. We'll even lose money.
If anything the fury of the Insurgent volleying increased as the sun climbed higher, and all along the blue-shirted line men grit their teeth and swore as they crouched or lay full length along the roadside, peering through the filmy veil that drifted slowly across their front the smoke from the Springfields of the volunteers.
A ululating yell, so fierce in its exultation that the cavalry horses pulled back upon their bridles in a frenzy of fear, broke the silence. Then the booming of the long Sharp's fifties on the summit mingled with the rattle of Springfields and needle-guns on the hill's flank.