gation which received me included both my
correspondent and the editor, now fast friends, and both of them ardent
supporters of mine.

At one of the regimental reunions a man, who had been an excellent
soldier, in greeting me mentioned how glad he was that the judge had let
him out in time to get to the reunion. I asked what was the matter, and
he replied with some surprise: "Why, Colonel, don't you know I had
a difficulty with a gentleman, and . . . er . . . well, I killed the
gentleman. But you can see that the judge thought it was all right or he
wouldn't have let me go." Waiving the latter point, I said: "How did it
happen? How did you do it?" Misinterpreting my question as showing
an interest only in the technique of the performance, the ex-puncher
replied: "With a .38 on a .45 frame, Colonel." I chuckled over the
answer, and it became proverbial with my family and some of my friends,
including Seth Bullock. When I was shot at Milwaukee, Seth Bullock wired
an inquiry to which I responded that it was all right, that the weapon
was merely "a .38 on a .45 frame." The telegram in some way became
public, and puzzled outsiders. By the way, both the men of my regiment
and the friends I had made in the old days in the West were themselves a
little puzzled at the interest shown in my making my speech after being
shot. This was what they expected, what they accepted as the right thing
for a man to do under the circumstances, a thing the non-performance of
which would have been discreditable rather than the performance being
creditable. They would not have expected a man to leave a battle, for
instance, because of being wounded in such fashion; and they saw no
reason why he should abandon a less important and less risky duty.

One of the best soldiers of my regiment was a huge man whom I made
marshal of a Rocky Mountain State. He had spent his hot and lusty youth
on the frontier during its viking age, and at that time had naturally
taken part in incidents which seemed queer to men "accustomed to die
decently of zymotic diseases." I told him that an effort would doubtless
be made to prevent his confirmation by the Senate, and therefore that
I wanted to know all the facts in his case. Had he played faro? He had;
but it was when everybody played faro, and he had never played a brace
game. Had he killed anybody? Yes, but it was in Dodge City on occasions
when he was deputy marshal or town marshal, at a time when Dodge City,
now