Overland Tales Part 31

The two regiments (Fifth Infantry and Third Cavalry) were to rendezvous at Fort Union, New Mexico, where General Carleton was to meet the troops, and a.s.sign them to the different forts, camps, and stations in his department. This was immediately after the close of the war; and these eight hundred men of the Fifth Infantry and the Third Cavalry, under Colonel Howe, were the first regulars sent out to the Territories, from whence they had been called in to do some of the hard fighting when the rebellion broke out--volunteers and colored troops taking their place on the frontiers.

It was early June--the sky radiant, the earth laughing. Birds of the western prairies warbled their greeting from out the rose-trellises and sweet-scented flowers of the little enclosures in front of the officers'

quarters, which, surrounding the well kept parade-ground, gave the place the look of one large bright-blooming garden. For days there had been at the fort signs and sounds as of a swarm of bees preparing to leave the hive. The carriage of the general flew back and forth between the town and the fort; the quartermaster dashed through the corrals, and by the workshops on his handsome sorrel; females of all shades and colors were interviewed and interrogated by officers' wives, who meant to provide themselves with luxuries for the journey; and new faces were seen and scanned in the mess-room every day.

The first day out from Fort Leavenworth we made but a few miles; the general seemed bent only on getting his command away from the barracks, for, though warned for weeks of the day of starting, there were those who seemed as little prepared for the march now as they had been two weeks ago. Well I remember the camp we made that first day--amid gra.s.s so high that we felt and looked like ants moving among the blades--and the confusion in our own establishment and that of our neighbors. The advantages of having secured the services of an old army-woman became apparent at this early stage. Without having at all consulted me, Mrs.

Melville had boiled a ham, and stowed bread, cheese, and sardines, where she could readily lay hands on the articles, in the mess-chest. Coffee was quickly cooked, and we could sit down to our meal and invite others to it, before we had fairly realized the discomforts of a first night in camp.

A good woman was Mrs. Melville, but dreadfully tyrannical--domineering ruthlessly over myself and her husband, and only in awe of the lieutenant when he insisted on having his own way. They had always served in the cavalry, and had now again enlisted (I mean the husband, who drove our carriage, had enlisted) in the Third; and as Melville was the only cavalry recruit with the command, it had been a matter of some difficulty to appropriate him and his wife. It was not till the second day, when we made camp, that I saw how large the command was; and I remember thinking that it had taken since yesterday for the "tail-end"

of the train of wagons, mules, and horses to leave the corrals and get into camp. When we left our camping-ground in the morning and returned to the highway, there was a broad road with deep ruts behind us, and hundreds of acres of prairie-land made bare and torn up, as though a city had been swept away, where the day before no sign of human life had been and the tall gra.s.s had waved untouched over the soft, black soil.

Fancy the tramp of eight hundred men, the keen, light-turning wheels of a dozen or two of carriages, and the heavy, crunching weight of two hundred army-wagons, drawn each by six stout mules! No wonder the gra.s.s never grew again where General Sykes's command had pa.s.sed!

Besides the twelve hundred mules in the wagons, there were some two hundred head extra, and a number of horses for the officers. All of these animals had been drawn from the government corrals at Fort Leavenworth; but I never realized how many there were, till one evening about four days out from the fort.

Elsewhere I have spoken of my white horse, Toby, who had so quickly become domesticated that he _would_ insist on returning to our tent, no matter how emphatically he was told that he must be turned out, and stay with the rest of the herd. The mules had been accustomed to follow the lead of a white "bell-mare" in the corrals; and as Toby was the only white horse in the outfit, they became greatly attached to him, and would follow him in his vagaries wherever he led. Unfortunately, when he took his way back to the camp and to our tent this evening, the herders were not on the alert as usual, and before they could turn the tide there was a stampede, and a perfect overflow of mules in the camp. Such yelling and bellowing as those animals set up, when they found themselves floundering among the tents, and belabored with clubs, ropes, and picket-pins by the enraged soldiers, was never heard before nor since. Even Toby's serenity was disturbed, and he stood half-way in the tent, trembling, and looking as though he knew that the wagon-master was making his way to our settlement. Though I could forgive the man's rage, as he pushed the horse to one side and pa.s.sed into the tent, neither the lieutenant nor myself took kindly to his offer to "shoot the horse the next time he undertook to stampede the herd;" and I held close on to Toby till the mules were driven back, and the wagon-master's wrath had cooled.

Truth to tell, before the next forty-eight hours were over, I was wellnigh converted to the belief that we had drawn the meanest stock the government-stables had ever contained. I forgot to say that each of the officers had been a.s.signed a company of the recruits, and as they marched with them, we ladies were left in our carriages alone. No sooner was the command fairly on the road this morning than Molly and Jenny, a pair of green mules drawing our carriage, fell to jumping and kicking on a rough piece of ground, and a moment later the carriage was laid p.r.o.ne on one side, while I quietly clambered out on the other. A chorus of little screams went up from the rest of the carriages--expressing more horror, I think, at my getting up without the a.s.sistance of the doctor, who came flying up on his square-headed bay, than at the accident itself.

This was not enough of evil for the day. We made camp early (the general made not over fifteen miles a day when first starting out with the recruits), and Molly and Jenny, fastened to each other by a light chain around the neck, followed Toby through the camp, where they had come to be accepted as standing nuisances. Away up near the general's tent, Toby must have fancied there was good grazing, for he went there, the two mules _en train_. What followed I learned from the grinning orderly, who rapped at our tent soon after, holding the mules by the chain, and saying that "the general sent his compliments to the lieutenant, and he'd shoot the mules, and the white horse too, the next time they pulled the tent-fly down over him."

I looked stealthily out, and saw Toby in the distance, contemplatively switching his tail, and half a dozen men at work re-erecting the general's tent. The story was too good to keep; and the general himself told how, lying asleep on his cot, under the tent-fly, where it was cool, he had been waked up by Toby's nose brushing his face. Raising himself, and hurling one boot and an invective at the horse, he was surprised at seeing the two mules trying to stare him out of countenance at the open end of the fly. The other boot was shied at them, but there was no time to send anything else. The chain fastening the mules together had become twisted around, the pole holding up the fly, and the precipitate retreat of the long-eared pair brought the heavy canvas down on the general's face.

Would I could end my "tale of woe" right here; but a love of truth compels me to say that the meanness of that horse seemed endless, and his capacity for wickedness was such that portions of it fell on Molly and Jenny, when a particularly rich harvest rewarded his efforts at deviltry. When Toby came to the tent-door, early next morning, I noticed a strangely bright polish on his fore-hoofs, and a suspicious greasiness about his nose and face. Molly and Jenny had greasy streaks running all over them, and seemed so well fed that I wondered to myself which of the officers' horses had to suffer last night, and go supperless to bed.

Toby sniffed disdainfully at the bread I offered him, and turned to walk off very suddenly when he saw Melville coming toward the tent. I must explain that the tents were always pitched in the same order--the lieutenant's on one side of us; Captain Newbold's on the other; the baggage-wagon a.s.signed to each officer drawn up behind the tent; the mules, of course, turned out with the rest of the herd. Melville pointed to the wagon behind Captain Newbold's tent, where a knot of men were gathered, bending to the ground; but he seemed too full for utterance. Almost instinctively I knew what he wanted to tell me.

Newbold had brought two large jars of b.u.t.ter with him from Leavenworth, and Toby had encountered them last night, wiping his mouth on Molly and Jenny when he found the b.u.t.ter not to his taste. Over and above that, he had hauled six or eight grain-sacks out of the wagon, opened the sacks with his teeth, and scattered the grain for the two mules to eat.

I wanted to kill Toby on the spot; for the Newbolds were the best of neighbors, sharing with us, through the whole of that journey, the milk their cow (the only one with the whole train) was pleased to give. Not a word of complaint was heard from the captain or his little wife; but I did hope honestly that the miserable white horse might die of his extra feed of b.u.t.ter and oats.

In the evening Colonel Lane gathered the ladies together, led us to the top of a hill, and pointed out where Fort Riley lay, like a grand fortress, with long, white walls, rising on a green eminence. We reached it next day by night-fall, and though camped several miles outside of it, there were so many things which we found we actually needed, and which could only be had at this, the last post of any importance, that the greater number of officers were constantly to be seen between the sutler-store and the saddler-shop, the quartermaster's office and the corrals.

After a rest of three days, we took up the line of march again through prairie-land, dotted with farms and broken by forests and streams, through which (after having crossed the Kansas river at Manhattan, on a pontoon-bridge, before reaching Fort Riley) the soldiers seemed to think it rare sport to wade, barefooted, carrying shoes and stockings in their hands.

The country grew wilder and more desolate; and pa.s.sing a farm-house one day, near which there were buffaloes grazing in the pasture with oxen and cows, it seemed nothing extraordinary, though, of course, we did not see the buffalo in his native freedom till some time after. At Ellsworth (now Fort Harker) we halted again for a day, and then gradually entered the wilderness. Fort Zarah seems to have grown where it is, only to help make the country look sadder and more desolate; but the well they have is splendid. I think so at least, for I was _so_ thirsty when we turned in there at noon, though we continued the march and did not make camp.

The general seemed to consider the feet of his men fully seasoned by this time; and they certainly made some hard days' marches before they reached Fort Union. The days' marches were harder for them than they were for us, on the whole; though many a time, creeping slowly over the tediously level ground, did I wish that I could march with them, or help drive mules, or lead horses--anything rather than sit in the carriage for hours, the sun beating down in just the same direction, the men in front moving along in just the same measure. But there was something grand about it at the same time--a forest of bayonets in front of us, an endless train of wagons behind us, moving silently through the solemn wilds; hosts of red-winged black-birds fluttering along with us, the rarer blue-jay flying haughtily over their heads.

There was always something to see; the prairie-flowers were so dazzlingly colored some days, or the rock lay in such odd strata; and in one place we saw the remains of some rough fortifications built of the rocks--thrown up hastily, perhaps, one day when the party of brave emigrants spied "ye n.o.ble savage" bearing down on them. In camp everything looked pleasant and cheerful. The general had traversed the country more than once, knew every spring on the road, and had the camping-ground kept so neat that we could have stopped in one place a good many days without any discomfort. Beyond that, he was courteous and thoughtful of our comfort, as only a soldier can be; and there was not a lady "marching with the command" who would not have voted him a major-general of the United States army, or into the Presidential chair, if he had preferred it.

At Fort Dodge, where officers and men burrowed half under ground (at that time), I had not the least desire to remain. However, a few miles back, where the river makes the bend, there is a singular grandeur about the country, with nothing to break the utter loneliness, save the sad, heavy murmur of the water. And now we are out on the plains again; day after day we travel over land that lies so level and so still that not a being but the lark seems living here beside us. How hot and fierce the sun glares down on the slowly-winding column--a serpent it seems, with its length outstretched, as it moves over the bare, brown prairie. The spirit grew oppressed, and the heart fainted in the noon-day sun; the command to halt was always received with joy; and more than once we had to make forced marches to reach water. Yet we lost but one man out of the eight hundred, and he died the day we struck the Arkansas again--died in the road almost--and we carried him with us to camp; and at night, when the stars had come out and tear-drops hung in the eyes of the flowers by the river-bank, they carried him to his lonely grave. I went to the tent-door when I heard the m.u.f.fled drums, and stood outside, in the dark, where I could see the short procession pa.s.sing. Lanterns were carried in the train that moved ghostly away from the camp-fires and the white-looming tents. The grave was not far, and when they had lowered the coffin I saw the form of a man bowing over it, as though in prayer, and then the earth was shovelled back. The soldiers returned with measured tread, and left their comrade on the wide, lone prairie, with only the Arkansas to sing his dirge.

I went to sleep with tears in my eyes; but we were to make an early start in the morning, and before daybreak we were all awake and astir.

Sadness could not live in the heart those early mornings, and I thought sometimes the general had _reveille_ sounded so early purposely, to show us how beautiful Nature was at sunrise.

Sunrise on the plains! Is there anything in music, in painting, in poetry, that can bring before eyes that have never beheld it, the pa.s.sing beauty of such a scene? There are strains in music which bring a faint shadow of the picture back to me; no art can ever reproduce it.

How balmy the faint breath of wind that seems to lift upward the light, gray clouds, to make way for the rosy tints creeping athwart the horizon! Watch the clouds as they rise higher in the heavens; see how the sun-G.o.d has kissed them into blushes as bright as the damask-rose, sending a flood of yellow light to cover them with greater confusion.

Now they float gently upward till they reach the clear, blue sky, from where the yellow light has faded; and, watching bevies of other clouds, still dancing in the light above the first rays of the rising sun, the color fades from them, and they waft hither and thither--white clouds on deep blue ground--till the morning breeze bears them away from our sight. But words are weak and tame; and the yellow-breasted prairie-lark alone, rising high in the sun-bright air as the day begins, gives fit expression to her thanks for the glories of creation, in the wordless song she sings forever.

We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; it was very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the _generale_ was sounded, the families occupying them could be seen tumbling out, the children only half-dressed; and it happened sometimes that carriages were left behind, when not ready to fall into line when the march was beaten. In times of danger from Indians, of course, this would not have happened; but at that time there was thought to be no danger, except at night.

Mrs. Melville had developed into an unmitigated tyrant, and one of her victims was an Englishman, a raw recruit, who had been given the lieutenant as servant. His name was either Ackley or Hackley, Ockley or Hockley. If he insisted it was one, Mrs. Melville said it was the other; and so completely cowed was he at last that he no longer dared to a.s.sert his right to any name. I often thought it was a national revenge she was wreaking on the poor fellow (she and her husband had sprung from the Emerald Isle). He had to do all the work that should have fallen to her share, and he never had a moment to spare for the lieutenant or myself.

From the first day of starting, I had detected, among the detail of men sent to pitch our tent, a countryman of mine, a poor Dutchman, the greenest of his kind. I electrified him one day by speaking German to him, and ever after his pale, worn face would brighten, and his eyes light up, when I asked of him any little service or a.s.sistance. The general, knowing me to be a German, allowed the man to wait on us; and Mohrman was happy as a king when he could fondle Toby, or put our tent to rights, and fix things comfortably for me in the carriage. He was a cabinet-maker, and the camp-table he made for us was the envy of the whole camp. The poor fellow was weak in the chest (something unusual for one of his nationality), and a big Irish corporal, who was a good enough fellow otherwise, had always imposed on Mohrman, because he was ignorant of the language, and could make no complaint to his officer. He continued to bear with Stebbins's petty persecutions like a saint, till one morning he made his appearance at the tent-door, with tears in his eyes, and complained that the corporal had deprived him of the last thing he had left, coming from the "Fatherland"--his _Gesang-Buch_, which his mother had given him on the day of confirmation.

I stepped outside, where Corporal Stebbins with his detail stood, waiting to strike the tent at the sounding of the _generale_. There was a lurking grin on the corporal's face, as he approached at my summons.

"Corporal," said I, "have you Mohrman's book?"

"Sure, ma'am, and is it his prayer-book the poor b'y wants? Ye see, he complained yesterday that his knapsack was so heavy that he couldn't pack me blankets; so I thought I'd carry this for him a while;" and, amidst a half-suppressed snicker, he solemnly drew forth from his capacious pocket a big black hymn-book, substantially German-looking, about ten inches in length by five inches across.

"I'll take that book," said I, looking severe, and turning very quickly to hide my face.

After this Mohrman seemed to have more peace; and we journeyed on serenely till we reached Fort Lyon, Colorado, the first human habitation we had laid eyes on for many weeks. Sterile and rock-strewn as the country is, it was the boast of the post commander that he had as fine a company-garden as could be seen, twenty miles away from here; to which his wife added, "the only pity was that the vegetables should always be dry and wilted before they reached the garrison."

I was well pleased to think that our destination lay beyond Fort Lyon; though there were those among the ladies who so dreaded the crossing of the Arkansas just before us, and the pa.s.sage of the Raton Mountains later, that they would have remained here, where no flower could be coaxed into blossom, rather than have gone on. The Arkansas river was to be crossed at Bent's old fort, where the overland mail-stage also had its crossing. The carriages were discreetly sent a mile or two above the fording-place, for the soldiers--poor fellows--had to swim across, their clothes, knapsack, and gun in one hand, while with the other they held to the stout ropes stretched from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. Not a man of the eight hundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend a helping hand at the first cry for aid, and they all crossed safely, though many, I dare say, in fear and trembling. When the men were over, the married officers were permitted to join the ladies, and we were ferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for which little water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland Mail Company. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master and teamsters; and when the whole train was on the other side, we thought we had spent rather a pleasant day.

Like sailors scanning the edge of the horizon for land, so the soldiers had for days been watching the nearer approach of the Spanish Peaks looming faintly in the distance, and breaking the grand monotone of the level, changeless plain, verging, where the eye could see no further, into limitless s.p.a.ce. Those who had been out this way before commenced talking of the "Picketwire," and the beautiful valleys we should see, and the big onions the Mexicans would bring to the camp to sell. After a while I discovered that the "Picketwire" was a little river--the "Purgatoir" or "Purgatory"--along whose banks the Mexican raised vegetables and fruit, of which I saw specimens, later, in the big onion spoken of. I had not been in California then, and the onions produced there, of the size of a large saucer, certainly had a stunning effect on me.

I am not prepared to say why the little river was called Purgatory. For the most part the country was good enough--lovely, even; and sometimes grand. One or two days seemed rather purgatorial though, come to think of it. On one occasion we pa.s.sed through steep, barren hills, strewn all over with little cylindrical pieces of iron, that looked exactly as though they had been melted in that place just below purgatory, and thrown up here to cool. Another day we marched along the bed of a river, over boulders from three to six feet high; if _we_ did not think it purgatory, the horses and mules certainly did. But the worst day of all remained.

It broke at last--the dreaded day in which the Raton Pa.s.s was to be attempted. The horrors of the Pa.s.s, however, must have been less vivid in the eyes of the general than in the minds of the ladies belonging to his command; for, contrary to all hopes and expectations, he allowed none of the married officers to remain with the carriages. It was a "steep" pa.s.s, undeniably. To this day I have not forgotten the sound of the grating of the wheels on the bare, unmitigated rock, as the carriage made ascents and descents that were truly miraculous--one wheel pointing heavenward sometimes, while the other three were wedged in below; sc.r.a.ping along a rock wall, bounding from rock to rock, with the pleasant prospect, on the other side, of a launch from a jagged, well-deep precipice, into eternity.

The crowning point to our terror, and to the grandeur of the scene, was a fearfully inclined plane of solid rock, with a frowning bank on one side, a gaping drop-off on the other, and a dark, heavy wall rising square in front of us; against which, to all appearances, the mules must dash their brains out, for neither bit nor brake was of the least avail on this road. Just where the crash against the wall seemed inevitable, there was a narrow curve, and the road ran on in spite of the seeming impossibility. True to the saying, that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, I fell to laughing here, so that Melville turned in surprise to see whether fear and terror had robbed me of my sober senses; but I had seen in pa.s.sing, painted on that dreadful wall of frowning rock, the cabalistic words and signs: "Old Cabin Bitters; S---- T---- 1860 ---- X----;" and below this, "Brandreth's Vegetable Pills."

These horrors past, there lay before us valleys, hills, crags--that formed as picturesque a landscape as tourist's eye was ever gladdened by. At the foot of tall, straight pines, crowning the heights and covering the sloping hill-sides, was a carpet of short, soft gra.s.s, out of which laughed the merriest flower-eyes, and over which nodded the slenderest stalks, bearing blossoms that seemed exotic in their intensely bright hues. The balm-laden breath of the wind told enticing tales of the untrod velvet on the heights above, where the pine-trees bent and swayed in the pa.s.sing breeze. We had come upon this all so unexpectedly that the lieutenant insisted on my mounting Toby to obtain a better view of the whole country. My saddle was in the wagon somewhere, and there was no time to hunt it up; but as I had seen Mrs.

Lane start off on the colonel's horse and saddle sometime before, I clambered on Toby's back at once, into the lieutenant's saddle. By crossing some little low hills, which the command had to march around, I found myself pretty soon ahead of the train. Not aware that we were to pa.s.s any place where human beings dwelt, I kept bravely on--feeling all the more safe from seeing Captain Newbold's cow, with her guardian, just in front of me. When I saw a rude kind of gateway a little later, I could not resist the promptings of my curiosity, and quite forgot the command, which approached just then with beating drums and flying colors. Had I realized how near they were upon me, I think my native modesty would have prompted me to let General Sykes, with his command, pa.s.s in front of me; but seeing Captain Newbold's cow march through the gate, and an avenue of Mexican and Indian faces, I followed the lead, barely escaping the feet of the drummer-boys, who were close on my heels.

It was the residence of an old pioneer--old Wooten--a pioneer in the boldest sense of the word. In conversation with one of the officers, when Kit Carson was mentioned, he spoke of him as being a comparative stranger in these parts, having been in the country only some twenty-five or thirty years.

If, in the eyes of the straggling Mexicans gathered around, it was an honor to ride in front of the command--next after Captain Newbold's cow--that honor, and the privilege of riding in the lieutenant's saddle, was dearly paid for before night. Determined not to have the drummer-boys so close behind me again, I turned aside from the road, lured on by the magnificent fresh, soft gra.s.s before me. Toby seemed strangely averse to crushing the gra.s.s, for he stepped very gingerly, and made two or three attempts to turn back. Sky-gazing, I urged him on, till a sudden plunge he made had nearly thrown me out of the slippery saddle, and for the first time I saw that the fresh, treacherous green had only covered an ugly quagmire, in which Toby was wildly plunging about, getting in deeper at every fresh effort to raise himself. The command had nearly pa.s.sed; only Colonel Bankhead lingered behind, picking the rare flowers for his wife--gallant man!--and my wild shouts caused him to look around. It was a slow job to rescue me; and by the time I was on dry soil, the colonel's clothing was very much the color of Toby's legs just then, for the frightened horse would not move a step, and Colonel Bankhead--I repeat my thanks to him now--had made his way into the horrible bog at the risk of his life almost. After this I could let Toby have the reins, and go anywhere--he never got mired again. But I took to the carriage that day, and never mounted Toby again till we reached Fort Union, some time later.

They were building very comfortable quarters at Fort Union when we got in, but that did us no good. General Sykes had his camping-ground a.s.signed by General Carleton a mile or two outside the post; and our place was with the Fifth Infantry, until our regiment should get in. Now we used to strain our eyes looking for signs of "our regiment;" not that we were not well enough off where we were, but we used to congregate at the tent of some officer of the Third, and feel clannish, and speak of the delight we should feel when "old Howe" got in with the regiment--all out of sheer contrariness, I suppose.

One day Melville rushed wildly into the tent, and announced a great dust arising in the distance. We all rushed out, and a perfect fever took possession of the camp--cavalry and infantry, officers and men. Tables and mess-chests were brought out and spread; bottles were uncorked, and fruit-cans opened; dried-apple pie (a great luxury, I a.s.sure you) and salt pickles, raw sliced onions and raspberry jelly, were joyfully placed side by side.

Nearer rolled the dust--slowly--slowly; a snail might have moved faster, I thought, than this regiment, famed once as the Rifles, and blessed with the reputation of being very unlike a snail in general character.

Mrs. Melville needed no stimulant to do her best; affection and ambition prompted her alike--she had served with the Third before, and was now again of them--and she worked like a beaver to have the table well spread for the expected guests. The slow, heavy tramp of the approaching troops shook the earth like far-off thunder; but the dust was so thick that it was hard to tell where the soldiers left off and the wagons commenced, while the train moved. At last there came the sudden clanging of trumpets, so shrill and discordant that I put my hands up to my ears, and then the command halted near our camp.

Let no one dream of a band of gay cavaliers riding grandly into the garrison on prancing steeds, and with flying banners! Alas, for romance and poetry! Gaunt, ragged-looking men, on bony, rough-coated horses--sun-burned, dust-covered, travel-worn, man and beast. Was there nothing left of the old material of the dashing, death-daring Rifles?

Ah, well! These men had seen nothing for long weeks but the red, sun-heated soil of the Red River country; had drank nothing but the thick, blood-red water of the river; had eaten nothing but the one dry, hard cracker, dealt out to them each day; for they had been led wrong by the guide, had been lost, so that they reached Fort Union long after, instead of long before, the Fifth Infantry.

Their camping-ground was a.s.signed them quite a distance from the Fifth, and we rode over the next day to visit the ladies who had come with the command. The difference between the two camps struck me all the more forcibly, I presume, because General Sykes was famed for the order and precision he enforced; and when we rode up to his tent two days later, to bid him good-bye (the officers of the Third having received orders to join their regiment), I exclaimed, in tones of mild despair:

"Oh, general, can you not come with us, and take command of the Third?"

He shook his head solemnly, looking over to the cavalry camp.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, madame, than to accede to your wishes; but really in this instance I must decline. _There are too many unruly horses for me in that camp._"

I hope the general meant only what he said; I hope too the Third will forgive me, when I say that an old soldier in the ranks, a German, once told me in confidence that every member of that regiment could pa.s.s muster for the Wild Huntsman, so well known in the annals of terror in German fable-history.

II.