AROLLING, jerky train made up of several freight and one passenger car, the latter equally divided, “For Whites” and “For Negroes”—which in the south-west of Texas reads “Mexicans”—dropped my baggage at Pena station, and rolled off across the prairie, rocking from side to side like a line of canal-boats in a rough sea. It seemed like the last departing link of civilization. There was the freight station itself; beyond the track a leaky water-tank, a wooden store surrounded with piles of raw, foul-smelling hides left in exchange for tobacco and meal, a few thatched Mexican huts, and the prairie. That stretched on every side to the horizon, level and desolate1, and rising and falling in the heat. Beneath was a red sandy soil covered with cactus2 and bunches of gray, leafless brush, marked with the white skeletons of cattle, and overhead a sun at white heat, and heavily moving buzzards wheeling in circles or balancing themselves with outstretched wings between the hot sky above and the hot, red soil below.
Across this desert came slowly Trumpeter Tyler, of Troop G, Third Cavalry3, mounted on the white horse which only trumpeters affect, and as white as the horse itself from the dust of the trail. He did not look like the soldiers I had[28] seen at San Antonio. His blue shirt was wide open at the breast, his riding-breeches were bare at the knee, and the cactus and chaparral had torn his blouse into rags and ribbons. He pushed his wide-brimmed hat back from his forehead and breathed heavily with the heat. Captain Hardie’s camp, he panted, lay twenty-five miles to the west. He had come from there to see if the field tents and extra rations4 were ever going to arrive from the post, and as he had left, the captain had departed also with a detachment in search of Garza on a fresh trail. “And he means to follow it,” said Trumpeter Tyler, “if it takes him into Mexico.” So it was doubtful whether the visitor from the East would see the troop commander for several days; but if he nevertheless wished to push on to the camp, Trumpeter Tyler would be glad to show him the way. Not only would he show him the way, but he would look over his kit5 for him, and select such things as the visitor would need in the brush. Not such things as the visitor might want, but such things as the visitor would need. For in the brush necessities become luxuries, and luxuries are relics6 of an effete7 past and of places where tradition tells of pure water and changes of raiment, and, some say, even beds. Neither Trumpeter Tyler, nor Captain Francis H. Hardie, nor any of the officers or men of the eight troops of cavalry on field service in south-west Texas had seen such things for three long months of heat by day and cold by night, besides a blizzard8 of sleet9 and rain, that kept them trembling with cold for a fortnight. And it was for this reason that the visitor from the East chose to see the United States troops as they were in the field, and to tell about the way they performed their duty there, rather than as he found them at the posts, where there is at least a canteen and papers not more than a week old.
Trumpeter Tyler ran his hand haughtily10 through what I considered a very sensibly-chosen assortment11 of indispensable things, and selected a handful which he placed on one side.
“You think I had better not take those?” I suggested.
“That’s all you can take,” said the trooper, mercilessly. “You must think of the horse.”
Then he led the way to the store, and pointed12 out the value of a tin plate, a tin cup, and an iron knife and fork, saddle-bags, leather leggings to keep off the needles of the cactus, a revolver, and a blanket. It is of interest to give Trumpeter Tyler’s own outfit13, as it was that of every other man in the troop, and was all that any one of them had had for two months. He carried it all on his horse, and it consisted of a blanket, an overcoat, a carbine, a feed-bag, lariat14 and iron stake, a canteen, saddle-bags filled with rations on one side and a change of under-clothing on the other, a shelter-tent done up in a roll, a sword, and a revolver, with rounds of ammunition15 for it and the carbine worn in a belt around the waist. All of this, with the saddle, weighed about eighty pounds, and when the weight of a man is added to it, one can see that it is well, as Trumpeter Tyler suggested, to think of the horse. Troop G had been ordered out for seven days’ field service on the 15th of December, and it was then the 24th of January, and the clothes and equipments they had had with them when they started at midnight from Fort MacIntosh for that week of hard riding were all they had had with them since. But the hard riding had continued.
Trumpeter Tyler proved that day not only my guide, but a philosopher, and when night came on, a friend. He was[32] very young, and came from Virginia, as his slow, lazy voice showed; and he had played, in his twenty-three years, the many parts of photographer, compositor, barber, cook, musician, and soldier. He talked of these different callings as we walked our horses over the prairie, and, out of deference16 to myself and my errand, of writing. He was a somewhat general reader, and volunteered his opinion of the works of Rudyard Kipling, Laura Jean Libbey, Captain Charles King, and others with confident familiarity. He recognized no distinctions in literature; they had all written a book, therefore they were, in consequence, in exactly the same class.
Of Mr. Kipling he said, with an appreciative17 shake of the head, that “he knew the private soldier from way back;” of Captain Charles King, that he wrote for the officers; and of Laura Jean Libbey, that she was an authoress whose books he read “when there really wasn’t nothing else to do.” I doubt if one of Mr. Kipling’s own heroes could have made as able criticisms.
When night came on and the stars came out, he dropped the soldier shop and talked of religion and astronomy. The former, he assured me earnestly, was much discussed by the privates around the fire at night, which I could better believe after I saw how near the stars get and how wide the world seems when there is only a blanket between you and the heavens, and when there is a general impression prevailing18 that you are to be shot at from an ambush19 in the morning. Of astronomy he showed a very wonderful knowledge, and awakened20 my admiration21 by calling many stars by strange and ancient names—an admiration which was lessened22 abruptly23 when he confessed that he had been following some other than the North Star for the last three[33] miles, and that we were lost. It was a warm night, and I was so tired with the twenty-five-miles ride on a Mexican saddle—which is as comfortable as a soap-box turned edges up—that the idea of lying out on the ground did not alarm me. But Trumpeter Tyler’s honor was at stake. He had his reputation as a trailer to maintain, and he did so ably by lighting24 matches and gazing knowingly at the hoof25-marks of numerous cattle, whose bones, I was sure, were already whitening on the plain or journeying East in a refrigerator-car, but which he assured me were still fresh, and must lead to the ranch26 near which the camp was pitched. And so, after four hours’ aimless trailing through the chaparral, when only the thorns of the cactus kept us from falling asleep off our horses, we stumbled into two smouldering fires, a ghostly row of little shelter-tents, and a tall figure in a long overcoat, who clicked a carbine and cried, “Halt, and dismount!”
I was somewhat doubtful of my reception in the absence of the captain, and waited, very wide awake now, while they consulted together in whispers, and then the sentry27 led me to one of the little tents and kicked a sleeping form violently, and told me to crawl in and not to mind reveille in the morning, but to sleep on as long as I wished. I did not know then that I had Trumpeter Tyler’s bed, and that he was sleeping under a wagon28, but I was gratefully conscious of his “bunkie’s” tucking me in as tenderly as though I were his son, and of his not sharing, but giving me more than my share of the blankets. And I went to sleep so quickly that it was not until the morning that I found what I had drowsily29 concluded must be the roots of trees under me, to be “bunkie’s” sabre and carbine.
The American private, as he showed himself during the[34] three days in which I was his guest, and afterwards, when Captain Hardie had returned and we went scouting30 together, proved to be a most intelligent and unpicturesque individual. He was intelligent, because he had, as a rule, followed some other calling before he entered the service, and he was not picturesque31, because he looked on “soldiering” merely as a means of livelihood32, and had little or no patriotic33 or sentimental34 feeling concerning it. This latter was not true of the older men. They had seen real war either during the rebellion or in the Indian campaigns, which are much more desperate affairs than the Eastern mind appreciates, and they were fond of the service and proud of it. One of the corporals in G Troop, for instance, had been honorably discharged a year before with the rank of first sergeant35, and had re-enlisted36 as a private rather than give up the service, of which he found he was more fond than he had imagined when he had left it. And in K Troop was an even more notable instance in a man who had been retired37 on three-fourths pay, having served his thirty years, and who had returned to the troop to act as Captain Hunter’s “striker,” or man of all work, and who bore the monotony of the barracks and the hardships of field service rather than lose the uniform and the feeling of esprit de corps38 which thirty years’ service had made a necessity to him.
But the raw recruit, or the man in his third or fourth year, as he expressed himself in the different army posts and among the companies I met on the field, looked upon his work from a purely39 business point of view. He had been before enlistment40 a clerk, or a compositor, a cowboy, a day-laborer, painter, blacksmith, book-canvasser, almost everything. In Captain Hardie’s troop all of these were[35] represented, and the average of intelligence was very high. Whether the most intelligent private is the best soldier is a much-discussed question which is not to be discussed here, but these men were intelligent and were good soldiers, although I am sure they were too independent in their thoughts, though not in their actions, to have suited an officer of the English or German army. That they are more carefully picked men than those found in the rank and file of the British army can be proved from the fact that of those who apply for enlistment in the United States but twenty per cent. are chosen, while in Great Britain they accept eighty and in some years ninety per cent. of the applicants41. The small size of our army in comparison, however, makes this showing less favorable than it at first appears.
In camp, while the captain was away, the privates suggested a lot of college boys more than any other body of individuals. A few had the college boy’s delight in shirking their work, and would rejoice over having had a dirty carbine pass inspection42 on account of a shining barrel, as the Sophomore43 boasts of having gained a high marking for a translation he had read from a crib. They had also the college boy’s songs, and his trick of giving nicknames, and his original and sometimes clever slang, and his satisfaction in expressing violent liking44 or dislike for those in authority over him—in the one case tutors and professors, and in the other sergeants45 and captains. Their one stupid hitch46, in which the officers shared to some extent, was in re-enforcing all they said with profanity; but as soldiers have done this, apparently47, since the time of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages, it must be considered an inherited characteristic. Their fun around the camp fire at night was rough, but it was sometimes[36] clever, though it was open to the objection that a clever story never failed of three or four repetitions. The greatest successes were those in which the officers, always of some other troop, were the butts48. One impudent49 “cruitie” made himself famous in a night by improvising50 an interview between himself and a troop commander who had met him that day as he was steering51 a mule52 train across the prairie.
“‘How are you?’ said he to me. ‘You’re one of Captain Hardie’s men, ain’t you? I’m Captain——.’
“‘Glad to know you, captain,’ said I. ‘I’ve read about you in the papers.’”
This was considered a magnificent stroke by the men, who thought the captain in question rather too fond of sending in reports concerning himself to headquarters.
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘when do you think we’re going to catch this —— —— —— —— Garza? As for me,’ says he, ‘I’m that —— —— —— —— tired of the whole —— —— —— business that I’m willing to give up my job to any —— —— —— fool that will take it——’
“‘Well, old man,’ says I, ‘I’d be glad to relieve you,’ says I, ‘but I’d a —— sight rather serve under Captain Hardie than captain such a lot of regular —— —— —— coffee-coolers as you’ve got under you.’”
The audacity53 of this entirely54 fictitious55 conversation was what recommended it to the men. I only reproduce it here as showing their idea of humor. An even greater success was that of a stolid56 German, who related a true incident of life at Fort Clarke, where the men were singing one night around the fire, when the colonel passed by, and ordered them into the tents, and to stop that —— noise.
“And den,” continued the soldier, “he come acrost Cabding——, sitting in front of his tent, and he says to him quick like that, ‘You ged into your tent, too.’ That’s what he said to him, ‘You ged into your tent, too.’”
It is impossible to imagine the exquisite57 delight that this simple narrative58 gave. The idea of a real troop commander having been told to get into his tent just like a common soldier brought the tears to the men’s eyes, and the success of his story so turned the German’s head that he continued repeating to himself and to any one he met for several days: “That’s what he said, ‘You ged into your tent, too.’ That’s what he said.”
Captain Hardie rode his detachment into camp on the third day, with horses so tired that they tried to lie down whenever there was a halt; and a horse must be very tired before he will do that. Captain Hardie’s riding-breeches were held together by the yellow stripes at their sides, and his hands were raw and swollen59 with the marks of the cactus needles, and his face burned and seared to a dull red. I had heard of him through the papers and from the officers at headquarters as the “Riding Captain,” and as the one who had during the Garza campaign been most frequently in the saddle, and least given to sending in detailed60 reports of his own actions. He had been absolutely alone for the two months he had been in the field. He was the father of his men, as all troop commanders must be; he had to doctor them when they were ill, to lend them money when the paymaster lost his way in the brush, to write their letters, and to listen to their grievances61, and explain that it was not because they were not good soldiers that they could not go out and risk being shot on this or that particular scouting party—he could do all this for them, but he could not talk to them. He had to sit in front of his own camp fire and[40] hear them laughing around theirs, and consider the loneliness of south-western Texas, which is the loneliness of the ocean at night. He could talk to his Mexican guides, because they, while they were under him, were not of his troop, and I believe it was this need to speak to some living soul that taught Captain Hardie to know Spanish as well as he did, and much more quickly than the best of tutors could have done in a year at the post.
The Eastern mind does not occupy itself much with these guardians62 of its borders; its idea of the soldier is the comfortable, clubable fellow they meet in Washington and New York, whose red, white, and blue button is all that marks him from the other clubable, likable men about him. But they ought to know more and feel more for these equally likable men of the border posts, whose only knowledge of club life is the annual bill for dues, one of which, with supreme63 irony64, arrived in Captain Hardie’s mail at a time when we had only bacon three times a day, and nothing but alkali water to silence the thirst that followed. To a young man it is rather pathetic to see another young man, with a taste and fondness for the pleasant things of this world, pull out his watch and hold it to the camp fire and say, “Just seven o’clock; people in God’s country are sitting down to dinner.” And then a little later: “And now it’s eight o’clock, and they are going to the theatres. What is there at the theatres now?” And when I recalled the plays running in New York when I left it, the officers would select which one they would go to, with much grave deliberation, and then crawl in between two blankets and find the most comfortable angle at which a McClellan saddle will make a pillow.
The Garza campaign is only of interest here as it shows[41] the work of the United States troops who were engaged in it. As for Caterino E. Garza himself, he may, by the time this appears in print, have been made President of Mexico, which is most improbable; or have been captured in the brush, which is more improbable; or he may have disappeared from public notice altogether. It is only of interest to the Eastern man to know that a Mexican ranch-owner and sometime desperado and politician living in south-west Texas proclaimed a revolution against the Government of Mexico, and that that Government requested ours to see that the neutrality laws existing between the two countries were not broken by the raising of troops on our side of the Rio Grande River, and that followers65 of this Garcia should not be allowed to cross through Texas on their way to Mexico. This our Government, as represented by the Department of Texas, which has its headquarters at San Antonio, showed its willingness to do by sending at first two troops of cavalry, and later six more, into darkest Texas, with orders to take prisoners any bands of revolutionists they might find there; and to arrest all individual revolutionists with a warrant sworn to by two witnesses. The country into which these eight troops were sent stretches for three hundred and sixty miles along the Rio Grande River, where it separates Mexico from Texas, and runs back a hundred and more miles east, making of this so-called Garza territory an area of five hundred square miles.
This particular country is the back-yard of the world. It is to the rest of the West what the ash-covered lots near High Bridge are to New York. It is the country which led General Sheridan to say that if he owned both places, he would rent Texas and live in hell. It is the strip of country over which we actually went to war with Mexico,[42] and which gave General Sherman the opportunity of making the epigramme, which no one who has not seen the utter desolateness66 of the land can justly value, that we should go to war with Mexico again, and force her to take it back.
It is a country where there are no roses, but where everything that grows has a thorn. Where the cattle die of starvation, and where the troops had to hold up the solitary67 train that passes over it once a day, in true road-agent fashion, to take the water from its boilers68 that their horses might not drop for lack of it. It is a country where the sun blinds and scorches69 at noon, and where the dew falls like a cold rain at night, and where one shivers in an overcoat at breakfast, and rides without coat or waistcoat and panting with the heat the same afternoon. Where there are no trees, nor running streams, nor rocks nor hills, but just an ocean of gray chaparral and white, chalky cañons or red, dusty trails. If you leave this trail for fifty yards, you may wander for twenty miles before you come to water or a ranch or another trail, and by that time the chaparral and cactus will have robbed you of your clothing, and left in its place a covering of needles, which break when one attempts to draw them out, and remain in the flesh to fester and swell70 the skin, and leave it raw and tender for a week. This country, it is almost a pleasure to say, is America’s only in its possession. No white men, or so few that they are not as common as century-plants, live in it. It is Mexican in its people, its language, and its mode of life. The few who inhabit its wilderness71 are ranch-owners, and their shepherds and cowboys; and a ranch, which means a store and six or seven thatched adobe72 houses around it, is at the nearest three miles from the next ranch, and on an average twenty miles. As a rule, they move farther away the longer you ride towards them.
Into this foreign country of five hundred square miles the eight United States cavalry troops of forty men each and two companies of infantry73 were sent to find Garza and his followers. The only means by which a man or horses or cows can be tracked in this desert is by the foot or hoof prints which they may leave in the sandy soil as they follow the trails already made or make fresh ones. To follow these trails it is necessary to have as a guide a man born in the brush, who has trailed cattle for a livelihood. The Mexican Government supplied the troops with some of their own people, who did not know the particular country into which they were sent, but who could follow a trail in any country. One or two of these, sometimes none, went with each troop. What our Government should have done was to supply each troop commander with five or six of these men, who could have gone out in search of trails, and reported at the camp whenever they had found a fresh one. By this means the troops could have been saved hundreds of miles of unnecessary marching and countermarching on “false alarms,” and the Government much money, as the campaign in that event would have been brought much more rapidly to a conclusion.
But the troop commanders in the field had no such aids. They had to ride forth74 whenever so ordered to do by the authorities at headquarters, some two hundred miles from the scene of the action, who had in turn received their information from the Mexican general on the other side of the Rio Grande. This is what made doing their duty, as represented by obeying orders, such a difficult thing to[46] the troops in the Garza territory. They knew before they saddled their horses that they were going out on a wild-goose chase to wear out their horses and their own patience, and to accomplish nothing beyond furnishing Garza’s followers with certain satisfaction in seeing a large body of men riding solemnly through a dense75 underbrush in a blinding sun to find a trait which a Mexican general had told an American general would be sure to lead them to Garza, and news of which had reached them a week after whoever had made the trail had passed over it. They could imagine, as they trotted76 in a long, dusty line through the chaparral, as conspicuous78 marks on the plain as a prairie-wagon, that Garza or his men were watching them from under a clump79 of cactus on some elevation80 in the desert, and that he would say:
“Ah! the troops are out again, I see. Who is it to-day—Hardie, Chase, or Hunter? Lend me your field-glass. Ah! it is Hardie. He is a good rider. I hope he will not get a sunstroke.”
And then they would picture how the revolutionists would continue the smoking of their cornstalk cigarettes and the drinking of the smuggled81 muscal.
This is not an exaggerated picture. A man could lie hidden in this brush and watch the country on every side of him, and see each of the few living objects which might pass over it in a day, as easily as he could note the approach of a three-masted schooner82 at sea. And even though troops came directly towards him, he had but to lie flat in the brush within twenty feet of them, and they would not know it. It would be as easy to catch Jack83 the Ripper with a Lord-Mayor’s procession as Garza with a detachment of cavalry, unless they stumbled upon him by luck, or unless he[47] had with him so many men that their trail could be followed at a gallop84. As a matter of fact and history, the Garza movement was broken up in the first three weeks of its inception85 by the cavalry and the Texas Rangers86 and the deputy sheriffs, who rode after the large bodies of men and scattered87 them. After that it was merely a chase after little bands of from three to a dozen men, who travelled by night and slept by day in their race towards the river, or, when met there by the Mexican soldiers, in their race back again. The fact that every inhabitant of the ranches89 and every Mexican the troops met was a secret sympathizer with Garza was another and most important difficulty in the way of his pursuers. And it was trying to know that the barking of the dogs of a ranch was not yet out of ear-shot before a vaquero was scuttling90 off through the chaparral to tell the hiding revolutionists that the troops were on their way, and which way they were coming.
And so, while it is no credit to soldiers to do their duty, it is creditable to them when they do their duty knowing that it is futile91, and that some one has blundered. If a fire company in New York City were ordered out on a false alarm every day for three months, knowing that it was not a fire to which they were going, but that some one had wanted a messenger-boy, and rung up an engine by mistake, the alertness and fidelity92 of those firemen would be most severely93 tested. That is why I admired, and why the readers in the East should admire, the discipline and the faithfulness with which the cavalry on the border of Texas did their duty the last time Trumpeter Tyler sounded “Boots and Saddles,” and went forth as carefully equipped, and as eager and hopeful that this time meant fighting, as they did the first.
[48]Their life in the field was as near to nature, and, as far as comforts were concerned, to the beasts of the field, as men often come. A tramp in the Eastern States lives like a respectable householder in comparison. Suppose, to better understand it, that you were ordered to leave your house or flat or hall bedroom and live in the open air for two months, and that you were limited in your selection of what you wished to carry with you to the weight of eighty pounds. You would find it difficult to adjust this eighty pounds in such a way that it would include any comforts; certainly, there would be no luxuries. The soldiers of Troop G, besides the things before enumerated94, were given for a day’s rations a piece of bacon as large as your hand, as much coffee as would fill three large cups, and enough flour to make five or six heavy biscuits, which they justly called “’dobes,” after the clay bricks of which Mexican adobe houses are made. In camp they received potatoes and beans. All of these things were of excellent quality and were quite satisfying, as the work supplies an appetite to meet them. This is not furnished by the Government, and costs it nothing, but it is about the best article in the line of sustenance95 that the soldier receives. He sleeps on a blanket with his “bunkie,” and with his “bunkie’s” blanket over him. If he is cold, he can build the fire higher, and doze88 in front of that. He rides, as a rule, from seven in the morning to five in the afternoon, without a halt for a noonday meal, and he generally gets to sleep by eight or nine. The rest of the time he is in the saddle. Each man carries a frying-pan about as large as a plate, with an iron handle, which folds over and is locked in between the pan and another iron plate that closes upon it. He does his own cooking in this, unless he happens to be the captain’s “striker,” when he has double duty. He is so equipped and so taught that he is an entirely independent organization in himself, and he and his horse eat and sleep and work as a unit, and are as much and as little to the rest of the troop as one musket96 and bayonet are to the line of them when a company salutes97.
We had for a guide one of the most picturesque ruffians I ever met. He was a Mexican murderer to the third or fourth degree, as Captain Hardie explained when I first met him, and had been liberated98 from a jail in Mexico in order that he might serve his country on this side of the river as a guide, and that his wonderful powers as a trailer might not be wasted.
He rejoiced in his liberty from iron bars and a bare mud floor, and showed his gratitude99 in the most untiring vigilance and in the endurance of what seemed to the Eastern mind the greatest discomforts100. He always rode in advance of the column, and with his eyes wandering from the trail to the horizon and towards the backs of distant moving cattle, and again to the trail at his feet. Whenever he saw any one—and he could discover a suspected revolutionist long before any one else—the first intimation the rest of the scouting party would get of it was his pulling out his Winchester and disappearing on a gallop into the chaparral. He scorned the assistance of the troop, and when we came up to him again, after a wild dash through the brush, which left our hats and portions of our clothing to mark our way, we would find him with his prisoner’s carbine tucked under his arm, and beaming upon him with a smile of wicked satisfaction.
As a trailer he showed, as do many of these guides, what seemed to be a gift of second-sight cultivated to a supernatural degree. He would say: “Five horses have passed[52] ahead of us about an hour since. Two are led and one has two men on his back, and there is one on each of the other two;” which, when we caught up to them at the first watering-place, would prove to be true. Or he would tell us that troops or Rangers to such a number had crossed the trail at some time three or four days before, that a certain mark was made by a horse wandering without a rider, or that another had been made by a pony101 so many years old—all of which statements would be verified later. But it was as a would-be belligerent102 that he shone most picturesquely103. When he saw a thin column of smoke rising from a cañon where revolutionists were supposed to be in camp, or came upon several armed men riding towards us and too close to escape, his face would light up with a smile of the most wicked content and delight, and he would beam like a cannibal before a feast as he pumped out the empty cartridges104 and murmured, “Buena! buena! buena!” with rolling eyes and an anticipatory105 smack106 of the lips.
But he was generally disappointed; the smoke would come from a shepherd’s fire, and the revolutionists would point to the antelope-skins under their saddles, which had been several months in drying, and swear they were hunters, and call upon the saints to prove that they had never heard of such a man as Garza, and that carbines, revolvers, and knives were what every antelope-hunter needed for self-protection. At which the Mexican would show his teeth and roll his eyes with such a cruel show of disbelief that they would beg the “good captain” to protect them and let them go, which, owing to the fact that one cannot get a warrant and a notary107 public in the brush, as the regulations require, he would, after searching them, be compelled to do.
And then the Mexican, who had expected to see them hung to a tree until they talked or died, as would have been done in his own free republic, would sigh bitterly, and trot77 off patiently and hopefully after more. Hope was especially invented for soldiers and fishermen. One thought of this when one saw the spirit of the men as they stole out at night, holding up their horses’ heads to make them step lightly, and dodging108 the lights of the occasional ranches, and startling some shepherd sleeping by the trail into the belief that a file[54] of ghosts had passed by him in the mist. They were always sure that this time it meant something, and if the captain made a dash from the trail, and pounded with his fist on the door of a ranch where lights shone when lights should have been put out, the file of ghosts that had stretched back two hundred yards into the night in an instant became a close-encircling line of eager, open-eyed boys, with carbines free from the sling-belts, covering the windows and the grudgingly109 opened door. They never grew weary; they rode on many days from nine at night to five the next afternoon, with but three hours’ sleep. On one scouting expedition Tyler and myself rode one hundred and ten miles in thirty-three hours; the average, however, was from thirty to fifty miles a day; but the hot, tired eyes of the enlisted men kept wandering over the burning prairie as though looking for gold; and if on the ocean of cactus they saw a white object move, or a sombrero drop from sight, or a horse with a saddle on its back, they would pass the word forward on the instant, and wait breathlessly until the captain saw it too.
I asked some of them what they thought of when they were riding up to these wandering bands of revolutionists, and they told me that from the moment the captain had shouted “Howmp!” which is the only order he gives for any and every movement, they had made themselves corporals, had been awarded the medal of honor, and had spent the thirty thousand dollar reward for Garza’s capture. And so if any one is to take Garza, and the hunting of the Snark is to be long continued in Texas, I hope it will be G Troop, Third Cavalry, that brings the troublesome little wretch110 into camp; not because they have worked so much harder than the others, but because they had no tents, as[55] did the others, and no tinned goods, and no pay for two months, and because they had such an abundance of enthusiasm and hope, and the good cheer that does not come from the commissariat department or the canteen.
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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3
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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4
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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8
blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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lariat
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| n.系绳，套索；v.用套索套捕 | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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18
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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19
ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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20
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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21
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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22
lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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24
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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25
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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26
ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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27
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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28
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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30
scouting
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| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
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31
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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33
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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34
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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35
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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36
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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37
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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38
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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40
enlistment
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| n.应征入伍，获得，取得 | |
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41
applicants
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| 申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 ) | |
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42
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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43
sophomore
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| n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的 | |
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44
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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45
sergeants
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| 警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士 | |
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46
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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47
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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48
butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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49
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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50
improvising
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| 即兴创作（improvise的现在分词形式） | |
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51
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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52
mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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53
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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54
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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55
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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56
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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57
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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58
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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59
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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63
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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66
desolateness
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| 孤独 | |
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67
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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68
boilers
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| 锅炉，烧水器，水壶( boiler的名词复数 ) | |
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69
scorches
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的第三人称单数 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶 | |
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70
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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71
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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72
adobe
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| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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73
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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74
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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75
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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76
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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77
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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78
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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79
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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80
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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81
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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82
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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83
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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84
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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85
inception
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| n.开端，开始，取得学位 | |
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86
rangers
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| 护林者( ranger的名词复数 )； 突击队员 | |
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87
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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88
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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89
ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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90
scuttling
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| n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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91
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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92
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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93
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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94
enumerated
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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95
sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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96
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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97
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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98
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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99
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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100
discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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101
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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102
belligerent
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| adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者 | |
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103
picturesquely
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104
cartridges
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| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
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105
anticipatory
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| adj.预想的，预期的 | |
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106
smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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107
notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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108
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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109
grudgingly
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110
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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