when it was, at
any rate, so called. There was nothing so very unfortunate about it,
from what I can gather, since it seems to have fought well on its own
hook, quite up to all expectations, if not beyond. No officer at that
time seemed to care to connect his name with such a rioting,
nose-breaking band of desperado cavalrymen, unless it was temporarily,
and that was always in the field, and never in garrison. However, in
this case it did not have even an officer in the field. But let me go on
to my sergeant.

This one was a Southern gentleman, or rather a boy, when he refugeed out
of Fredericksburg with his family, before the Federal advance, in a
wagon belonging to a Mississippi rifle regiment; but nevertheless some
years later he got to be a gentleman, and passed through the Virginia
Military Institute with honor. The desire to be a soldier consumed him,
but the vicissitudes of the times compelled him, if he wanted to be a
soldier, to be a private one, which he became by duly enlisting in the
Third Cavalry. He struck the Orphan Troop.

Physically, Nature had slobbered all over Carter Johnson; she had
lavished on him her very last charm. His skin was pink, albeit the years
of Arizona sun had heightened it to a dangerous red; his mustache was
yellow and ideally military; while his pure Virginia accent, fired in
terse and jerky form at friend and enemy alike, relieved his natural
force of character by a shade of humor. He was thumped and bucked and
pounded into what was in the seventies considered a proper frontier
soldier, for in those days the nursery idea had not been lugged into the
army. If a sergeant bade a soldier "go" or "do," he instantly "went" or
"did"--otherwise the sergeant belted him over the head with his
six-shooter, and had him taken off in a cart. On pay-days, too, when men
who did not care to get drunk went to bed in barracks, they slept under
their bunks and not in them, which was conducive to longevity and a good
night's rest. When buffalo were scarce they ate the army rations in
those wild days; they had a fight often enough to earn thirteen dollars,
and at times a good deal more. This was the way with all men at that
time, but it was rough on recruits.

So my friend Carter Johnson wore through some years, rose to be a
corporal, finally a sergeant, and did many daring deeds. An atavism from
"the old border riders" of Scotland shone through the boy, and he took
on quickly. He could act the others