sought entry into the ranks of the Rough Riders as eagerly as if it
meant something widely different from hard work, rough fare, and the
possibility of death; and the reason why they turned out to be such
good soldiers lay largely in the fact that they were men who had
thoroughly counted the cost before entering, and who went into the
regiment because they believed that this offered their best chance for
seeing hard and dangerous service. Mason Mitchell, of New York, who
had been a chief of scouts in the Riel Rebellion, travelled all the
way to San Antonio to enlist; and others came there from distances as
great.

Some of them made appeals to me which I could not possibly resist.
Woodbury Kane had been a close friend of mine at Harvard. During the
eighteen years that had passed since my graduation I had seen very
little of him, though, being always interested in sport, I
occasionally met him on the hunting field, had seen him on the deck of
the Defender when she vanquished the Valkyrie, and knew the part he
had played on the Navajoe, when, in her most important race, that
otherwise unlucky yacht vanquished her opponent, the Prince of Wales's
Britannia. When the war was on, Kane felt it his duty to fight for his
country. He did not seek any position of distinction. All he desired
was the chance to do whatever work he was put to do well, and to get
to the front; and he enlisted as a trooper. When I went down to the
camp at San Antonio he was on kitchen duty, and was cooking and
washing dishes for one of the New Mexican troops; and he was doing it
so well that I had no further doubt as to how he would get on.

My friend of many hunts and ranch partner, Robert Munro Ferguson, of
Scotland, who had been on Lord Aberdeen's staff as a Lieutenant but a
year before, likewise could not keep out of the regiment. He, too,