gallop
down to the beach and bathe in the surf, or else go for long rides
over the beautiful rolling plains, thickly studded with pools which
were white with water-lilies. Sometimes I went off alone with my
orderly, young Gordon Johnston, one of the best men in the regiment;
he was a nephew of the Governor of Alabama, and when at Princeton had
played on the eleven. We had plenty of horses, and these rides were
most enjoyable. Galloping over the open, rolling country, through the
cool fall evenings, made us feel as if we were out on the great
Western plains and might at any moment start deer from the brush, or
see antelope stand and gaze, far away, or rouse a band of mighty elk
and hear their horns clatter as they fled.

An old friend, Baron von Sternberg, of the German Embassy, spent a
week in camp with me. He had served, when only seventeen, in the
Franco-Prussian War as a hussar, and was a noted sharp-shooter--being
"the little baron" who is the hero of Archibald Forbes's true story of
"The Pig-dog." He and I had for years talked over the possibilities of
just such a regiment as the one I was commanding, and he was greatly
interested in it. Indeed I had vainly sought permission from the
German ambassador to take him with the regiment to Santiago.

One Sunday before the regiment disbanded I supplemented Chaplain
Brown's address to the men by a short sermon of a rather hortatory
character. I told them how proud I was of them, but warned them not to
think that they could now go back and rest on their laurels, bidding
them remember that though for ten days or so the world would be
willing to treat them as heroes, yet after that time they would find
they had to get down to hard work just like everyone else, unless they
were willing to be regarded as worthless do-nothings. They took the
sermon in good part, and I hope that some of them profited by it. At
any rate, they repaid me by a very much more tangible expression of
affection. One afternoon, to my genuine surprise, I was asked out of
my tent by Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie (the gallant old boy had rejoined
us), and found the whole regiment formed in hollow square, with the
officers and color-sergeant in the middle. When I went in, one of the
troopers came forward and on behalf of the regiment presented me with
Remington's fine bronze, "The Bronco-buster." There could have been no
more appropriate gift from such a regiment, and I was not only pleased
with it, but very de