next one, where he spent his five thalers in beer. After that he
wandered away to his regiment at Heilbronn. There he was immediately
confined in irons, and threatened with the gallows, because he had been
away so many weeks. He insisted on being taken before his General,
presented himself to him, and reminded him of the evening at the inn.
To the sharp rebuke of the General he answered that he had all his life
wished for nothing so much as to know what were the feelings of a great
lord, and for that he had used his booty.

In the Hungarian war it was made a law, that the booty should be
equally distributed, but that soon ceased. Still those who were
fortunate enough to make great gains, found it advisable to give a
share to the officers of their company. This common interest in the
booty, as well as the necessity of maintaining themselves by
requisition, in remote countries, developed in great perfection
partisan service. There were not only whole divisions of troops, which
performed in the armies the service of marauding corps, as for example
those of Holk and Isolani in the Imperial, but there were also
individual leaders of companies, who selected the most expert people
for this lucrative employment. A marauding party, departing on a secret
expedition, must consist of an uneven number to bring good luck. These
parties stole far into the country to plunder a rich man, to fall upon
a small city, or intercept transports of goods or money, and to bring
away with them cattle and provisions. There was often an agreement made
with the enemy's garrisons in the neighbourhood, as to what was to be
spared in the districts common to them. Every kind of cunning was
practised in such expeditions; they knew now to imitate the report of
heavy artillery, by firing a hand-gun, doubly loaded, through an empty
barrel; they used shoes with reversed soles, and caused the horses to
be shod in the same manner, the feet of stolen cattle were covered with
shoes, and a sponge was put in the pigs' food to which a packthread was
fastened. The soldiers disguised themselves as peasants or women, and
paid spies amongst the citizens and country people of the
neighbourhood. Their messengers ran hither and thither with despatches,
and were called in camp language "_feldtauben_" (field doves); they
carried these despatches in their ears rolled up as small balls,
fastened them in the hair of shaggy dogs, enclosed them in a clod of
earth, or sewed the