eyes were full of tears. To think what he had missed--to think what he
had missed!

He knew that national interest would centre in this regiment of Rough
Riders; for every State in the Union had a son in its ranks, and the
sons represented every social element in the national life. Never was
there a more representative body of men, nor a body of more varied
elements standing all on one and the same basis of American manhood. He
recalled how, at Tampa, he had stood with the Colonel while the regiment
filed past, the Colonel, meanwhile, telling him about the men--the
strong men, who made strong stories for Wister and strong pictures for
Remington. And the Colonel had pointed with especial pride and affection
to two boy troopers, who marched at the head of his column--a Puritan
from Massachusetts and a Cavalier through Virginia blood from Kentucky;
one the son of a Confederate General, the other the son of a Union
General--both beardless "bunkies," brothers in arms, and fast becoming
brothers at heart--Robert Sumner and Basil Crittenden. The Colonel waved
his hand toward the wild Westerners who followed them.

"It's odd to think it--but those two boys are the fathers of the
regiment."

And now that Grafton looked around and thought of it again--they were.
The fathers of the regiment had planted Plymouth and Jamestown; had
wrenched life and liberty and civilization from the granite of New
England, the fastnesses of the Cumberland, and the wildernesses of the
rich valleys beyond; while the sires of these very Westerners had gone
on with the same trinity through the barren wastes of plains. And, now,
having conquered the New World, Puritan and Cavalier, and the children
of both were come together again on the same old mission of freedom, but