the
strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched.
Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and
distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could
have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the
introduction of my own charger--the cavalryman's better half--was of
that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby.
Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier
fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and,
ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel
had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed
Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy
prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just
joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and
we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly
stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this
is Forager, of 'K' Troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to
admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray
thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He hated him
more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop
down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and
invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went,
Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both.
Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy
turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid
motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable,
this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style; while my poor old troop-horse, in
answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath
and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his
fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious
rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned
hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor
Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after
him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and
all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had
worn him out and never tried a spurt.

It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow