e our trunks and army
chests. Some fine china and a few pieces of cut glass I kept, and even
those are packed in small boxes and in the chests.

The general selling-out business has been funny. No one in the regiment
possessed many things that they cared to move East with them, and as we
did not desire to turn our houses into second-hand shops, where people
could handle and make remarks about things we had treasured, it was
decided that everything to be sold should be moved to the large
hall, where enlisted men could attend to the shop business. Our only
purchasers were people from Sun River Crossing, and a few ranches
that are some distance from the post, and it was soon discovered that
anything at all nice was passed by them, so we became sharp--bunching
the worthless with the good--and that worked beautifully and things sold
fast.

These moves are of the greatest importance to army officers, and many
times the change of station is a mere nothing in comparison to the
refitting of a house, something that is never taken into consideration
when the pay of the Army is under discussion. The regiment has been on
the frontier ten years, and everything that we had that was at all nice
had been sent up from St. Paul at great expense, or purchased in Helena
at an exorbitant price. All those things have been disposed of for
almost nothing, and when the regiment reaches Fort Snelling, where
larger quarters have to be furnished for an almost city life, the
officers will be at great expense. Why I am bothering about Snelling
I fail to see, as we are not going there, and I certainly have enough
troubles of my Own to think about.

This very morning, Mrs. Ames, of Sun River Crossing, who now owns dear
Rollo, came up to ask me to show her how to drive him! Just think of
that! She talked as though she had been deceived--that it was my duty
to show her the trick by which I had managed to control the horse, and,
naturally, it would be a delightful pleasure to me to be allowed to
drive him once more, and so on. Mrs. Ames said that yesterday she
started out with him, intending to come to the post to let me see
him--fancy the delicate feeling expressed in that--but the horse went so
fast she became frightened, for it seemed as though the telegraph poles
were only a foot apart. She finally got the horse turned around and
drove back home, when her husband got in and undertook to drive him, but
with no better success; but he, too, started th