but I don't know that I
could have done anything else. I shall have plenty to eat and a place to
sleep, and at the same time I shall be earning money to pay off that
debt I owe Dave Evans. What an idiot I was to keep that money! To pay
for that one act of folly and dishonesty I am compelled to waste some of
the best years of my life in the army. I hope I shall get a chance to
show them that I am no coward, if I am a greenhorn."

It was little indeed that Mose gave Bob for the articles he had to offer
for sale--just four dollars for clothing that had cost over thirty; but
those four dollars made him feel a little more independent. They
brought him a few delicacies to supplement the plain fare that was
served up to him and his companions at the cheap restaurant at which
they took their meals, and were the means of gaining him the friendship
of one of the recruits, Bristow by name, who stuck to him like a leech
until the last cent had been expended.

Bob remained in Galveston nearly two weeks, and during that time he saw
everything of interest there was to be seen in the city. Then he began
to grow tired of having nothing to do, and took to hanging about the
office as the others did, and making comments upon those who presented
themselves for enlistment. He was glad indeed when the lieutenant
mustered all the recruits one night and ordered them to report at the
office the next morning at nine o'clock, sharp; but he was provoked
because the officer did not tell them where they were going. This,
however, only proved the truth of the old sergeant's words--that a
private never knew where he was going until he got there. Bob knew that
they were bound for Brownsville when a steamer landed them there a few
hours later, and he found out that they were going from there to Fort
Lamoine when they arrived at that post after a weary tramp of more than
three hundred miles.

The recruits camped beside the trail at night, and during the daytime
plodded along behind the army-wagon which contained their tents,
blankets, rations and cooking-utensils. It was very fatiguing to all of
them, and it was not long before Bob began to learn something of the
dispositions of the men with whom he was to be intimately associated
during his term of enlistment. The majority of them grumbled lustily,
and even talking of deserting, and there were not more than two or three
besides himself who bore the discomforts of the march with anything like
patience.