steal the animals. The battalion of the --th Infantry had made only
two days' march from here, and the herders had just turned the horses
and mules out to graze, when a band of Cheyenne Indians swooped down
upon them and stampeded every animal, leaving the companies without
even one mule! The poor things are still in camp on the prairie,
waiting for something, anything, to move them on. General Phillips is
mightily pleased that the Indians did not succeed in getting the
animals from his command, and I am pleased that they cannot tease me
any more.

My ride with Lieutenant Golden, Faye's classmate, this morning was
very exciting for a time. We started directly after stable call, which
is at six o'clock. Lieutenant Golden rode Dandy, his beautiful
thoroughbred, that reminds me so much of Lieutenant Baldwin's Tom, and
I rode a troop horse that had never been ridden by a woman before. As
soon as he was led up I noticed that there was much white to be seen
in his eyes, and that he was restless and ever pawing the ground. But
the orderly said he was not vicious, and he was sure I could ride him.
He did not object in the least to my skirt, and we started off in fine
style, but before we reached the end of the line he gave two or three
pulls at the bit, and then bolted! My arms are remarkably strong, but
they were like a child's against that hard mouth. He turned the corner
sharply and carried me along back of the laundress' quarters, where
there was a perfect network of clothes lines, and where I fully
expected to be swept from the saddle. But I managed to avoid them by
putting my head down close to the horse's neck, Indian fashion. He was
not a very large horse, and lowered himself, of course, by his
terrific pace. He went like the wind, on and up the hill in front of
the guard house. There a sentry was walking post, and on his big
infantry rifle was a long bayonet, and the poor man, in his desire to