Conquest of the desert: Sargento, the loyal dog

Sargento, the loyal dog

Among the dogs in our story was Sargento (Sergeant), from Fort General Paz, in the 1880s. Sargento, a stray and highly intelligent dog, was a faithful night guard of the commander's post. He helped go hunting when food was scarce. And he could catch a hare and deliver it to the soldiers who, in many cases, sent Sargento to the kennel (cucha in the local slang). The dog obeyed without question and without reward.

At seven in the evening the time to pray was announced. The soldiers of the fort uncovered themselves, many knelt, all bowed their heads. Sargento, then, would sit and look at the floor, as if he were praying.

On the battlefield he was very brave. In one of those usual encounters, Sargento was left lying motionless on the battlefield, without moving, next to a pool of his own blood. When the combat ended, Corporal Ángel Ledesma returned to where the canine companion had fallen. He discovered that he was breathing and loaded him onto the haunches of his horse. At the fort, he and his elderly mother, Mamá Carmen, took care of him.

The local Rin Tin Tin became good friends with his savior. They walked together and at night the black man went to visit the dog at his guard, in front of the commander's ranch. Sargento separated a few meters from the ranch gate to be with his best friend. Not even Corporal Ledesma would allow him to come near the colonel's house at night.

During a relay outing for recruits, in which Mamá Carmen and Corporal Ángel participated, the patrol was ambushed. There, an Indian mortally wounded Ángel Ledesma. Mamá Carmen launched into a fury at the attacker. The black woman and the Indian rolled on the ground, in a ferocious combat that paralyzed the others. Mamá Carmen killed the person who had killed her son. She then loaded the body of the black Ángel on a horse and headed to the General Paz Fort, where Sargento heard the news.

After that unfortunate event, he stopped seeing the local Rin Tin Tin by day. He only appeared at sunset, when it was time to guard the commander's house. Intrigued by the constant disappearance of the dog during the day, a couple of soldiers followed him and discovered what was happening: although Sargento watched the commander's ranch at night, during the day he moved away to prostrate himself next to the grave of Corporal Ángel Ledesma, where guarded, impassively, the eternal rest of his hero.

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