checked, reared till I thought he would fall back on his rider. "Oh no;
we've settled that little matter when I was breaking him," said Centaur.
"He used to try to fall back on me. Isn't he a devil? I think you'd
laugh to see the way our regiments are horsed. Sometimes a big Montana
beast like mine has a thirteen-two broncho pony for neighbour, and it's
annoying if you're used to better things. And oh, how you have to ride
your mount! It's necessary; but I can tell you at the end of a long
day's march, when you'd give all the world to ride like a sack, it isn't
sweet to get extra drill for slouching. When we're turned out, we're
turned out for _anything_--not a fifteen-mile trot, but for the use and
behoof of all the Northern States. I've been in Arizona. A trooper there
who had been in India told me that Arizona was like Afghanistan. There's
nothing under Heaven there except horned toads and rattlesnakes--and
Indians. Our trouble is that we only deal with Indians and they don't
teach us much, and of course the citizens look down on us and all that.
As a matter of fact, I suppose we're really only mounted infantry, but
remember we're the best mounted infantry in the world." And the horse
danced a fandango in proof.

"My faith!" said I, looking at the dusty blouse, grey hat, soiled
leather accoutrements, and whalebone poise of the wearer. "If they are
all like you, you are."

"Thanks, whoever you may be. Of course if we were turned into a
lawn-tennis court and told to resist, say, your heavy cavalry, we'd be
ridden off the face of the earth if we couldn't get away. We have
neither the weight nor the drill for a charge. My horse, for instance,
by English standards, is half-broken, and like all the others, he bolts
when we're in line. But cavalry charge against cavalry charge doesn't
happen often, and if it did, well--all our men know that up to a hundred
yards they are absolutely safe behind this old thing." He patted his
revolver pouch. "Absolutely safe from any shooting of yours. What man do
you think would dare to use a pistol at even thirty yards, if his life
depended oh it? Not one of _your_ men. They can't shoot. We can. You'll
hear about that down the Park--further up."

Then he added, courteously: "Just now it seems that the English supply
all the men to the American Army. That's what makes them so good
perhaps." And with mutual expressions of good-will we parted--he to an
outlying patrol fifteen miles away, I