adron and battalion. The earnestness and
intelligence with which the men went to work rendered the task of
instruction much less difficult than would be supposed. It soon grew
easy to handle the regiment in all the simpler forms of close and open
order. When they had grown so that they could be handled with ease in
marching, and in the ordinary manoeuvres of the drill-ground, we began
to train them in open-order work, skirmishing and firing. Here their
woodcraft and plainscraft, their knowledge of the rifle, helped us
very much. Skirmishing they took to naturally, which was fortunate, as
practically all our fighting was done in open order.

Meanwhile we were purchasing horses. Judging from what I saw I do not
think that we got heavy enough animals, and of those purchased
certainly a half were nearly unbroken. It was no easy matter to handle
them on the picket-lines, and to provide for feeding and watering; and
the efforts to shoe and ride them were at first productive of much
vigorous excitement. Of course, those that were wild from the range
had to be thrown and tied down before they could be shod. Half the
horses of the regiment bucked, or possessed some other of the amiable
weaknesses incident to horse life on the great ranches; but we had
abundance of men who were utterly unmoved by any antic a horse might
commit. Every animal was speedily mastered, though a large number
remained to the end mounts upon which an ordinary rider would have
felt very uncomfortable.

My own horses were purchased for me by a Texas friend, John Moore,
with whom I had once hunted peccaries on the Nueces. I only paid fifty
dollars apiece, and the animals were not showy; but they were tough
and hardy, and answered my purpose well.

Mounted drill with such horses and men bade fair to offer
opportunities for excitement; yet it usually went off smoothly enough.
Before drilling the men on horseback they had all been drilled on
foot, and having gone at their work with hearty zest, they knew well
the simple movements to form any kind of line or column. Wood was busy
from morning till night in hurrying the final details of the
equipment, and he turned the drill of the men over to me. To drill
perfectly needs long practice, but to drill roughly is a thing very
easy to learn indeed. We were not always right about our intervals,
our lines were somewhat irregular, and our more difficult movements
were executed at times in rather a haphazard way; but