get away with a U. S. brand. It never does matter about private
property, but anything with U. S. on it has got to be looked after, like
a croupy child.

We had some good days' sport, and no more formidable enterprise against
the night-guard was attempted than the noisy approach of a white
jackass. The tents were struck and loaded when it began to rain. We
stood in the shelter of the escort-wagon, and the storm rose to a
hurricane. Our corral became a tank; but shortly the black clouds passed
north, and we pulled out. The twig ran into a branch, and the branch
struck the trunk near the bluffs over the Rio Grande, and in town there
stood the Mexican soldiers leaning against the wall as we had left them.
We wondered if they had moved meanwhile.




A SERGEANT OF THE ORPHAN TROOP


WHILE it is undisputed that Captain Dodd's troop of the Third Cavalry is
not an orphan, and is, moreover, quite as far from it as any troop of
cavalry in the world, all this occurred many years ago, when it was, at
any rate, so called. There was nothing so very unfortunate about it,
from what I can gather, since it seems to have fought well on its own
hook, quite up to all expectations, if not beyond. No officer at that
time seemed to care to connect his name with such a rioting,
nose-breaking band of desperado cavalrymen, unless it was temporarily,
and that was always in the field, and never in garrison. However, in
this case it did not have even an officer in the field. But let me go on