r you; but you must trot right out, all the same, and join
our mess. Besides, I want you to pick out a horse for me, something
nice and quiet, 'cause I'm not a dead game rider, you know. Same time
he must be good to look at, sound, and fit in every respect. I've
already bought one this morning, a devilish pretty little mare, on Sile
Pine's say-so that she was gentle, but after a slight though very
trying experience, I'm afraid a bronco-buster's ideas of gentleness and
mine don't exactly agree."

"Why? Did she throw you?" asked Ridge.

"Well, she didn't exactly throw me. I was merely projected about a
thousand yards as though from a dynamite-gun, and then the brute tried
to chew me up. You see she's a Mexican--what Mark Twain would call a
'genuine Mexican plug'--and doesn't seem to sabe United States; for
when I began to reason with her she simply went wild. I left her
tearing through the camp like a steam-cyclone, and if we find anything
at all to show where it was located, it is more than I hope for. But
there's a new lot of prime-looking cattle just arrived, and they are
going like hot cakes; so come along quick and help me get something
rideable."

Half an hour later Ridge found himself in the first army camp he had
ever visited, amid a body of men the most heterogeneous but typically
American ever gathered together. Millionaire dudes and clubmen from
the great Eastern cities fraternized with the wildest representatives
of far Western life. Men of every calling and social position, all
wearing blue flannel shirts and slouch hats, were here mingled on terms
of perfect equality. They were drilling, shooting, skylarking, playing
cards, performing incredible feats on horseback, cooking, eating,
singing, yelling, and behaving in every respect like a lot of
irrepressible schoolboys out for a holiday. Here a red-headed Irish
corporal damned the awkwardness of a young Boston swell, fresh from
Harvard, who had been detailed as cook in a company kitchen; while,
close at hand, a New-Yorker of the bluest blood was washing dishes with
the deftness gained from long experience on a New Mexican sheep-ranch.

As Ridge and Rollo passed through one of the canvas-bordered streets of
this unique camp, the former suddenly leaped aside with an exclamation
of alarm. An unknown beast, fortunately chained, had made a spring at
him, with sharp claws barely missing his leg.

"You mustn't mind a little thing like that," laughed