As the artillery band blazed forth in a glory of rousing melody the noise of people's feet increased.
By the time that the infantry marched past the central portion of the great mass of civilians it was the turn of the Thirty-fourth's band. Every spectator, nearly, was now standing, stamping, waving. Cheer after cheer went up.
It seemed as though human enthusiasm could not know greater bounds. Faint echoes must have reached the distant, nearly empty circus big-top. Yet the breathless thousands had caught, as yet, but the first tame pageantry of this glimpse of the glory of armed men.
Just before B company, as it swung along at the good old regular gait, one excited onlooker hurled a well-filled wallet—the only sign left him for showing his utter enthusiasm.
File after file of foot soldiers stepped over this wallet, yet, if one of the infantrymen knew it was there, not one of them let any sign escape him. Discipline was absolutely perfect. These marching men of rifle and bayonet swept on, heads up, eyes straight forward, every file in flawless, absolute alignment.
And so the wallet was passed over and left behind while the crowd, staring at this unexpected scene of soldierly discipline, went wilder than before, in a frantic acclaim that was granted from the soul.
A policeman, standing at the edge of the crowd, picked up the wallet, returning it to its somewhat disappointed owner.
When the parade had swept around the field, each band playing in its turn, the crowd settled back with a sigh, as though satisfied that the greatest sight on the programme had been witnessed.
Yet hardly was there a pause. A troop of cavalry came forward, now, at the trot. All the evolutions of the school of the troop, mounted, were now gone through with. All the swift, bewildering changes of the cavalryman's manual of arms were exhibited.
Single riders and squads exhibited some of the prettiest work of the cowboy, for the American cavalryman has learned his riding and his daring from the best work of generations of cowboys.