in
to name all the troopers who so eagerly craved the chance to win honor
out of hazard and danger.

Among them was good, solemn Fred Herrig, the Alsatian. I knew Fred's
patience and skill as a hunter from the trips we had taken together
after deer and mountain sheep through the Bad Lands of the Little
Missouri. He still spoke English with what might be called Alsatian
variations--he always spoke of the gun detail as the "gondetle," with
the accent on the first syllable--and he expressed a wish to be allowed
"a holiday from the gondetle to go after dem gorrillas." I told him he
could have the holiday, but to his great disappointment the truce came
first, and then Fred asked that, inasmuch as the "gorrillas" were now
forbidden game, he might be allowed to go after guinea-hens instead.

Even after the truce, however, some of my sharp-shooters had
occupation, for two guerillas in our rear took occasional shots at the
men who were bathing in a pond, until one of our men spied them, when
they were both speedily brought down. One of my riflemen who did best
at this kind of work, by the way, got into trouble because of it. He
was much inflated by my commendation of him, and when he went back to
his troop he declined to obey the first Sergeant's orders on the
ground that he was "the Colonel's sharp-shooter." The Lieutenant in
command, being somewhat puzzled, brought him to me, and I had to
explain that if the offence, disobedience of orders in face of the
enemy, was repeated he might incur the death penalty; whereat he
looked very crestfallen. That afternoon he got permission, like Fred
Herrig, to go after guinea-hens, which were found wild in some numbers
round about; and he sent me the only one he got as a peace offering.
The few guinea-hens thus procured were all used for the sick.

Dr. Church had established a little field hospital under the
shoulder of the hill in our rear. He was himself very sick and had
almost nothing in the way of medicine or supplies or apparatus of any
kind, but the condition of the wounded in the big field hospitals in
the rear was so horrible, from the lack of attendants as well as of
medicines, that we kept all the men we possibly could at the front.
Some of them had now begun to come down with fever. They were all very
patient, but it was pitiful to see the sick and wounded soldiers lying
on their blankets, if they had any, and if not then simply in the mud,
with nothing to eat but hardtack an