In front I could see two silhouettes of soldiers tearing along, and behind could hear the heavy pounding of the troop horses, the clank of arms, the snorts and heavy breathings. I could hardly see my horse’s head, to say nothing of the ground in front. Here is where the perfect grip with the thighs is wanted, and here is where the man who is bundled up like a ball on his horse’s back is in imminent danger of breaking his neck. I felt like a pack on a government mule, and only wished I had some one to “throw the diamond hitch over me.” The inequalities of the road make your horse plunge and go staggering sidewise, or down on his knees, and it is not at all an unusual thing for a cavalryman to upset entirely, though nothing short of a total turn-over will separate a veteran soldier from his horse. After a few miles of these vicissitudes I gained the head of the column, and when the pace slackened I turned the whole thing over in my mind, and a great light seemed to shine through the whole subject. For a smooth road and a trotting horse, that European riding-master was right; but when you put a man in the dust or smoke, over the rocks and cut banks, on the “bucking” horse, or where he must handle his weapons or his vieta, he must have a seat on his mount as tight as a stamp on an envelope, and not go washing around like a shot in a bottle. In a park or on a country road, where a man has nothing to do but give his undivided attention to sticking on his saddle, it has its advantages. An Indian or a cowboy could take the average park rider off from his horse, scalp him, hang him on a bush, and never break a gallop. I do not wish to seem intolerant, because I will say that the most beautiful horse and the most perfect horseman I have ever seen was the bay gelding Partisan and his rider in the high-school class at the recent Horse Show in New York; but I do insist that no one shall for a moment imagine that the American style of riding is not the firmest of all seats.
UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG
With a repetition of the military forms, we reached the cavalry camp on the Lame Deer Creek. This is an old battle-ground of the general’s—his last fight with the Cheyennes, where, as the general puts it, we “kicked them out of their blankets in the early morning.” These Indians recognize him as their conqueror, and were allied with him in the Nez Percé campaign. One old chief pointed to the stars on his shoulder-strap, and charged him to remember that they helped to put them there.
That night was very cold, and I slept badly, so at an early hour I rolled out of my blankets and crawled into my clothes. I stepped out of my tent, and saw that the stars were yet visible and the light of the morning warming up to chase the gray shadows over the western hills. Three tight little cavalry soldiers came out on the parade, and blew three bugles as hard as ever they could to an unappreciative audience of sleepy soldiers and solemn hills. I walked down past the officers’ row, and shook the kinks out of my stiffened knees. Everything was as quietly dismal as only a sleeping camp can be. The Sibley containing General Miles showed no signs of life, and until he arose this little military solar system would not revolve. I bethought me of the irregulars. They were down in the river bottom—Lieutenant Casey and his Indian scouts. I knew that Casey had commanded Indian scouts until his temper was as refined as beaten gold, so I thought it safer to arouse him than any one else, and, walking down, I scratched at his tent—which is equivalent to knocking—and received a rather loud and surly inquiry as to what I wanted. My sensitive nature was so shocked by this that, like the bad actor, I had hopes for no more generous gift than a cigarette. I was let into the Sibley, and saw the ground covered with blanketed forms. One of the swathed forms sat up, and the captain allowed he wanted to get up in the night, but that ever since Lieutenant Blank had shot at the orderly he was afraid to move about in the gloom. Lieutenant B. sat up and denied the impeachment. Another officer arose and made some extended remarks on the unseemly disturbance at this unseasonable hour. To pass over these inequalities of life, I will say that the military process of stiffening a man’s backbone and reducing his mind to a logarithm breeds a homogeneous class whom we all know. They have small waists, and their clothes fit them; they are punctilious; they respect forms, and always do the dignified and proper thing at the particular instant, and never display their individuality except on two occasions: one is the field of battle and the other is before breakfast. Some bright fellow will one day tell in print the droll stock anecdotes of the United States army, and you’ll all agree that they are good. They are better, though, if you sit in a Sibley on a cold morning while the orderly boils the coffee; and are more fortunate if you have Ned Casey to embellish what he calls the international complications which arose from the bombardment of Canada with paving-stones by a drunken recruit at Detroit.
After the commission had talked to a ring of drowsy old chiefs, and the general had reminded them that he had thrashed them once, and was perfectly willing to do it again if they did not keep in the middle of the big road, the commission was loaded into the ambulances.
UNITED STATES INFANTRY IN WINTER RIG