nice little adjutant went jangling by on a hard-trotting thoroughbred,
his shoulders high and his seat low. My old disease began to take
possession of me; I could fairly feel the microbes generate. Another
officer comes clattering, with his orderly following after. The fever
has me. We mount, and we are off, all going to stables.

Out from the corrals swarm the troopers, leading their unwilling mounts.
The horses are saying, "Damn the Colonel!" One of them comes in arching
bounds; he is saying worse of the Colonel, or maybe only cussing out his
own recruit for pulling his _cincha_ too tight. They form troop lines in
column, while the Captains throw open eyes over the things which would
not interest my friend from New York or the German nurse-girl.

The two forward troops are the enemy, and are distinguished by wearing
brown canvas stable-frocks. These shortly move out through the post, and
are seen no more.

Now comes the sun. By the shades of Knickerbocker's _History of New
York_ I seem now to have gotten at the beginning; but patience, the sun
is no detail out in the arid country. It does more things than blister
your nose. It is the despair of the painter as it colors the minarets of
the Bad Lands which abound around Adobe, and it dries up the company
gardens if they don't watch the _acequias_ mighty sharp. To one just out
of bed it excuses existence. I find I begin to soften towards the
Colonel. In fact, it is possible that he is entirely right about having
his old trumpets blown around garrison at this hour, though it took the
Captain's boot to prove it shortly since.

The command moves out, trotting quickly through the blinding clouds of
dust. The landscape seems to get right up and mingle with the