"And aren't you Norris, the gentleman rider?" asked Gridley.
"I have ridden," acknowledged Ridge.
"So has this my other friend and fellow-soldier," cried Van Kyp. "Norris, I want you to know Mr. Silas Pine, of Medora, North Dakota, a bad man from the Bad Lands, a bronco-buster by profession, who has also consented to become a terror to Spaniards in my company."
"Have you a company, then?" asked Ridge, after he had acknowledged this introduction.
"I have--that is, I belong to one; but, in the sense you mean, you must not use the word company. That is a term common to 'doughboys,' who, as you doubtless know, are merely uniformed pedestrians; but we of the cavalry always speak of our immediate fighting coterie as a 'troop.' Likewise the 'battalion' of the inconsequent doughboy has for our behoof been supplanted by the more formidable word 'squadron,' to show that we are de jure as well as de facto men of war. Sabe?"
"Then you are really in the cavalry?" asked Ridge, while laughing at this nonsense.
"Yes, I really am, or rather I really shall be when I get there; for though enlisted and sworn in, we haven't yet joined or been sworn at."
"What is your regiment?"
"You mean our 'command.' Why, didn't I tell you? 'Teddy's Terrors,' Roosevelt's Rough Riders. First Volunteer Cavalry, U.S.A., Colonel Leonard Wood commanding."
"The very one!" cried Ridge. "Why didn't I think of it before? How I wish I could join it."