[
 {
  "chunk": 204,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "After an epigraph, the narrator says he once saw the proudest cavalry regiment in the country flee in terror, an incident it never wants mentioned.",
  "predicament": "A proud company that prides itself on its dignity has one humiliating episode it never wants mentioned again."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 205,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "A new colonel tells the regiment it is not smart enough and casts its beloved old drum-horse, which it paid dearly for and which is the soul of the regiment.",
  "predicament": "A new superior insults a proud company and gets rid of the beloved symbol of its pride on a whim."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 206,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The drum-horse is replaced by an ugly beast and put up for public auction; the regiment is near mutiny, and when the troopers offer to buy him the colonel forbids it as mutinous.",
  "predicament": "When a new superior sells off what his people hold sacred, their offer to buy it back is forbidden as insubordination."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 207,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "A subaltern buys the drum-horse at the sale; when the colonel is angry he feigns submission and promises to shoot it; the colonel, who knows he erred but cannot admit it, is soothed; the subaltern and a friend quietly prepare something.",
  "predicament": "A superior who knows he blundered cannot admit it, while a quietly defiant junior pretends to submit and plots his reply."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 208,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The troopers give what they think is the drum-horse a grand funeral; the farrier says it is the wrong horse and notices black paint, but is told he is drunk.",
  "predicament": "A whole company mourns what they believe their superior destroyed, while the few who notice signs of a trick are silenced."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 209,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "In revenge the colonel drives the regiment through a gruelling field day; the narrator explains the regiment's treasured privilege of having the band play while the horses are watered.",
  "predicament": "To punish his people's insolence, a vindictive superior drives them through a gruelling day meant only to make them suffer."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 210,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "As the band plays at watering, the dead drum-horse comes down the road at sunset, drums draped in crape and a skeleton riding on its back.",
  "predicament": "At the end of a punishing day, the thing a whole company believed destroyed comes back toward them in the most unsettling way."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 211,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "One man yells and wheels; panic spreads troop by troop; the band breaks and the whole regiment stampedes while the colonel and officers are at the mess.",
  "predicament": "One person's panic sets off a whole company, and they flee in disorder while those in charge are away drinking."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 212,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The colonel thinks the regiment has mutinied or is drunk; the band doubles back, and the rest of the regiment scatters across the province in the dusk.",
  "predicament": "Seeing his whole company scattered in disorder, a superior assumes they have risen against him or are all drunk."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 213,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The horse trots up to the mess for bread; the colonel finds it alive, the drums made of paper, and wrenches off the wired skeleton, cursing the band as cowards.",
  "predicament": "A furious superior exposes a hoax with his own hands, and curses his people for being frightened of nothing at all."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 214,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The colonel threatens to disband and court-martial everyone; the subaltern calmly disclaims responsibility; the second-in-command takes the colonel aside.",
  "predicament": "A raging superior threatens to punish everyone, while a calm deputy takes him aside to talk him out of it."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 215,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The second-in-command argues that any action would make the regiment a laughingstock across the army and cannot be proved against any officer; the colonel slowly calms down.",
  "predicament": "A wise deputy persuades an enraged superior that punishing a mocking hoax in public would only make everyone a laughingstock."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 216,
  "story": 25,
  "summary": "The colonel restores the drum-horse to its place and is cheered by the regiment; he worries he went back on his word, but his deputy says such things win loyalty without harming discipline.",
  "predicament": "A superior who reverses his own unpopular order is cheered by his people, and his deputy assures him it costs no discipline."
 }
]