however, was there,
and a beast lower than any beaver began to throw stones at it because
the old lady from Chicago said: "P'raps, if you rattle them up they'll
come out. I do so want to see a beaver."

Yet it cheers me to think I have seen the beaver in his wilds. Never
will I go to the Zoo. That even, after supper--'twere flattery to call
it dinner--a Captain and a Subaltern of the cavalry post appeared at the
hotel. These were the officers of whom the Mammoth Springs Captain had
spoken. The Lieutenant had read everything that he could lay hands on
about the Indian army, especially our cavalry arrangements, and was very
full of a scheme for raising the riding Red Indians--it is not every
noble savage that will make a trooper--into frontier levies--a sort of
Khyber guard. "Only," as he said ruefully, "there is no frontier these
days, and all our Indian wars are nearly over. Those beautiful beasts
will die out, and nobody will ever know what splendid cavalry they can
make."

The Captain told stories of Border warfare--of ambush, firing on the
rear-guard, heat that split the skull better than any tomahawk, cold
that wrinkled the very liver, night-stampedes of baggage-mules, raiding
of cattle, and hopeless stern-chases into inhospitable hills, when the
cavalry knew that they were not only being outpaced but outspied. Then
he spoke of one fair charge when a tribe gave battle in the open and the
troopers rode in swordless, firing right and left with their revolvers
and--it was excessively uncomfy for that tribe. And I spoke of what men
had told me of huntings in Burma, of hill-climbing in the Black Mountain
affair, and so forth.

"Exactly!" said the Captain. "Nobody knows and nobody cares. What does
it matter to the Down-Easter who Wrap-up-his-Tail was?"

"And what does the fat Briton know or care about Boh Hla-Oo?" said I.
Then both together: "Depend upon it, my dear Sir, the army in both
Anglo-Saxon countries is a mischievously underestimated institution, and
it's a pleasure to meet a man who," etc., etc. And we nodded
triangularly in all good will, and swore eternal friendship. The
Lieutenant made a statement which rather amazed me. He said that, on
account of the scarcity of business, many American officers were to be
found getting practical instruction from little troubles among the South
American Republics. When the need broke out they would return. "There is
so little for us to do, and the Republic has a trick of