emy soon
thinned their ranks. These regiments got to know what it means to face a
brave, trained enemy of over half a million soldiers with a small force
of fifty thousand; they learned what it means to be always in the
minority on the field of battle, and thus constant experience on the
battle-field soon transformed these men into splendid soldiers.
Especially the rough-riders from the prairies and the mountains, from
which the cavalry regiments were largely recruited, and the exceedingly
useful Indian and half-breed scouts, to whom all the tricks of earlier
days seemed to return instinctively, kept the Japanese outposts busy.
Their machine-guns, which were conveyed from place to place on the backs
of horses, proved a very handy weapon. But their numbers were few, and
although this sort of skirmishing might tire the enemy, it could not
effectually break up his strong positions.

Ever on the track of the enemy, surprising their sentries and bivouacs,
rushing upon the unsuspecting Japs like a whirlwind and then pursuing
them across scorching plains and through the dark, rocky defiles of the
Rockies, always avoiding large detachments and attacking their
commissariat and ammunition columns from the rear, popping up here,
there and everywhere on their indefatigable horses and disappearing with
the speed of lightning, this is how those weather-beaten rough-riders in
their torn uniforms kept up the war and stood faithful guard! Brave
fellows they were, ever ready to push on vigorously, even when the blood
from their torn feet dyed the rocks a deep red! No matter how weary they
were, the sound of the bugle never failed to endow their limbs with
renewed energy, and they could be depended on to the last man to do
whatever was required of them.

It was on these endless marches, these reckless rides through rocky
wastes and silent forests--to the accompaniment of the tramp of horses,
the creaking of saddles and the rush and roar of rolling stones on
lonely mountain-trails--that those strange, weird rhythms and melodies
arose, which lived on long afterwards in the minds and hearts of the
people.

By the end of July affairs had reached the stage where it was possible
for the Northern army, commanded by General MacArthur and consisting of
one hundred and ten thousand men, to start for the Blue Mountains in the
eastern part of Oregon, and the Pacific army of almost equal strength to
set out for Granger on the Union Pacific Railway.