at Civil War--and our practical activities in scouting and
campaigning after wild, hostile Indians subsequent to that war entered
into this chase and capture, as _Military factors_--without which we
would have been as helpless as two children.

Who could look ahead into that long, trackless, desolate hundred miles
of thinly settled country--almost a wilderness--with small towns more
than 40 miles apart--in the midst of a bitter cold tempest of rain,
snow, sleet and ice--and rely upon any Service School scheme of study,
or War College papers and compositions upon obsolete campaigns and
battles--or any extended use of war games--annual maneuvers or sham
battles, etc., things that many of our young officers have been fed upon
for years to fit them for great wars, emergencies, crises, etc.--and
predicted any success for either Lawton or the writer? Any experience
(?) gained in such theoretical military knowledge as would fit into such
a case--would have been about as effective for Lawton and myself as our
study of the Sanskrit and Chinese languages.

It was a problem based purely upon military experience gained by hard
knocks and campaigns and in battles--seasoned up with plenty of good,
sound horse sense--combined with our battle discipline and morale;
courage, resourcefulness and powers of endurance entered, of course, as
factors. These were our guides. One's complete education, and years of
the most violent intensive training ever devised by any military machine
of West Point Manufacture would have accomplished absolutely nothing
along the lines we worked to secure the unqualified success--that was
expected and demanded of us by such an exacting soldier as Mackenzie.
There was nothing the writer had so laboriously studied and learned in
his course at West Point that could by any construction or stretch of
the imagination, have fitted in, or been of the slightest use in this
problem. No Mathematics--No Algebra with its "Binomial Theorem;" no
plane Geometry with its fascinating "Pons Asinorum"; No Trigonometry
with its sines and co-sines; no Descriptive or Analytical Geometry with
planes of reference, etc. No Calculus with its integrations and
differentiations; or equations "A" and "B". No Spherical Astronomy with
its "Polaris"--or projections of the Eclipse; No Optics or Acoustics. No
spectral Analysis. No trays of Minerals--with the blow pipe and testing
acids to determine "Fools Gold" or Iron Pyrites from the real artic