blind trail to fame. I am glad I am not a cavalryman; still, it is the
happiest kind of fun to look on when you are not responsible; but it
needs some cultivation to understand and appreciate.

I remember a dear friend who had a taste for out-of-doors. He penetrated
deeply into the interior not long since to see these same troopers do a
line of heroics, with a band of Bannocks to support the role. The
Indians could not finally be got on the centre of the stage, but made
hot-foot for the agency. My friend could not see any good in all this,
nor was he satisfied with the first act even. He must needs have a
climax, and that not forthcoming, he loaded his disgust into a trunk
line and brought it back to his club corner here in New York. He there
narrated the failure of his first night; said the soldiers were not even
dusty as advertised; damned the Indians keenly, and swore at the West by
all his gods.

There was a time when I, too, regarded not the sketches in this art, but
yearned for the finished product. That, however, is not exhibited
generally over once in a generation.

At Adobe there are only eight troops--not enough to make a German
nurse-girl turn her head in the street, and my friend from New York,
with his Napoleonic largeness, would scoff out loud. But he and the
nurse do not understand the significance; they have not the eyes to see.
A starboard or a port horseshoe would be all one to them, and a crease
in the saddle-blanket the smallest thing in the world, yet it might
spoil a horse.

When the trumpets went in the morning I was sorry I had thought at all.
It was not light yet, and I clung to my pillow. Already this cavalry has