rifles for Retreat
it is wise to have poles for our tents, and so they have mysteriously
appeared from the neighboring woods. They will travel in the blanket
rolls from camp to camp. Should I come again to Plattsburg I shall get a
broom-stick for the hike, provided with conveniences for hanging socks,
tooth-brush, and candle-socket. Fellows are tying candles to their poles
with string, convenient enough till the string burns and the candle
tumbles down into the straw.

I can imagine difficulty in pitching tents under other circumstances than
are provided by this ideal afternoon. In the rain we shan't care to have
the tents face the wind, nor shall we enjoy setting up tents in a gale,
when we shall also hope for better holding ground for the short tent-pins
than we find here in this gravel. As it is, we have piled stones on the
pins today. Some fellows have ditched their tents, but Bann and I don't
see the need of that except with more of a threat of rain than is given
by this cloudless sky.

Now if you can imagine in a field, sloping gently to the west, some four
hundred and fifty or more of these pup-tents, with a thousand men or less
swarming around and in them, some coming back from a bath in the brook,
some cleaning guns, some making fireplaces for an evening fire, some
napping, some writing; if you can hear much talk and laughter, the
chopping of axes at the cook tents, the call "Corporals, come and get
your mail for your squads!" then you can understand what a lively, busy
place this is. Just across the fence is a camp of cavalry; there is a
squadron in our field also. Running across the heads of the streets are
the big cook tents; close by are the tents of the Y. M. C. A. and the
Exchange and the photographer; elsewhere are the officer's big conical
tents, each with the luxury of a stove; and in still another spot is the
doctor's tent, not far from the shelter-tents of the band. Men are idling
everywhere, and working everywhere also. The long line of trucks is drawn
up not far from the field entrance, and the drivers are tinkering them
for tomorrow.

But outside the sacred enclosure of the camp, yet as near as they can
squeeze, are the buzzards, each with his little outfit for following the
hike. A scrawny horse, a little tent, a board on two barrels, a big
sign--these with indigestibles constitute their outfits. In the camp
wander men with baskets, or boys with boxes, selling fruit, tobacco, and
chocolate. Th