well up, and the captain
of the leading troop, riding with his first lieutenant in front of his
sets of fours, looked inquiringly at the colonel, as though half
expectant of a signal to halt or change the gait. Receiving none, and
seeing that the colonel had probably stopped to look over his command,
the senior troop leader pushed steadily on.

Behind him, four abreast, came the dragoons,--a stalwart, sunburned,
soldierly-looking lot. Not a particle of show or glitter in their attire
or equipment. Utterly unlike the dazzling hussars of England or the
European continent, when the troopers of the United States are out on
the broad prairies of the West "for business," as they put it, hardly a
brass button, even, is to be seen.

The colonel notes with satisfaction the nimble, active pace of the
horses as they go by at rapid walk, and the easy seat of the men in
their saddles.

First the bays of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleek
grays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and
"A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, "C" Troop's color.

There are two sorrel troops in the regiment and more bays, and later in
the year, when new horses were obtained, the Fifth had a roan and a
dark-brown troop; but in June, when they were marching up to take their
part in the great campaign that followed, only two of their companies
were not mounted on bright bay horses, and one and all they were in the
pink of condition and eager for a burst "'cross country."

It was, however, their colonel's desire to take them to their
destination in good trim, and he permitted no "larking."

They had several hundred miles of weary marching before them. Much of
the country beyond the Platte was "Bad Lands," where the grass is scant
and poor, the soil ashen and spongy, and the water densely alkaline. All
this would tell very sensibly upon the condition of horses that all
winter long had been comfortably stabled, regularly groomed and
grain-fed, and watered only in pure running streams flushed by springs
or melting snow.

It was all very well for young Ralph to be coursing about on his fleet,
elastic sorrel, radiant with delight as the boy was at being again "out
on the plains" and in the saddle; but the cavalry commander's first care
must be to bring his horses to the scene of action in the most effective
state of health and soundness. The first few days' marching, therefore,
had to be watched with the ut