Such a bond is mine for these four comrades. Reed and Pete, Hadley and
John Mac were their camp names, and I always think of them together.
These four made a real cavalry man of me. It may be the mark of old age
upon me now, for even to-day the handsome automobile and the great
railway engine can command my admiration and awe; but the splendid
thoroughbred, intelligent, and quivering with power, I can command and
love.

The bond between the cavalry man and his mount is a strong one, and the
spirit of the war-horse is as varied and sensitive as that of his rider.
When our regiment had crossed the Arkansas River and was pushing its way
grimly into the heart of the silent stretches of desolation, our horses
grew nervous, and a restless homesickness possessed them. Troop A were
great riders, and we were quick to note this uneasiness.

"What's the matter with these critters, Phil?" Reed, who rode next to
me, asked as we settled into line one November morning.

"I don't know, Reed," I replied. "This one is a dead match for the horse
I rode with Forsyth. The man that killed him laughed and said, 'There
goes the last damned horse, anyhow.'"

"Just so it ain't the first's all I'm caring for. You'll be in luck if
you have the last," the rider next to Reed declared.

"What makes you think so, John?" I inquired.

"Oh, that's John Mac for you," Reed said laughing. "He's homesick."

"No, it's the horses that's homesick," John Mac answered. "They've got
horse sense and that's what some of us ain't got. They know they'll
never get across the Arkansas River again."

"Cheerful prospect," I declared. "That means we'll never get across
either, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yes," John answered grimly, "we'll get back all right. Don't know
as this lot'd be any special ornament to kingdom come, anyhow; but we'll
go through hell on the way comin' or goin'; now, mark me, Reed, and
stop your idiotic grinning."

Whatever may have given this nervousness to the horses, so like a
presentiment of coming ill, they were all possessed with the same
spirit, and we remembered it afterwards when their bones were bleaching
on the high flat lands long leagues beyond the limits of civilization.

The Plains had no welcoming smile for us. The November skies were
clouded over, and a steady rain soaked the land with all its
appurtenances, including a straggling command of a thousand men
floundering along day after day among the crooked canyons and gloomy
san