22 The Rough Riders 



the highest possible pitch. He required instant obe- 

 dience, and tolerated not the slightest evasion of 

 duty ; but his mastery of his art was so thorough and 

 his performance of his own duty so rigid that he 

 won at once not merely their admiration, but that 

 soldierly affection so readily given by the man in the 

 ranks to the superior who cares for his men and 

 leads them fearlessly in battle. 



All Easterners and Westerners, Northerners 

 and Southerners, officers and men, cowboys and col- 

 lege graduates, wherever they came from, and what- 

 ever their social position possessed in common the 

 traits of hardihood and a thirst for adventure. They 

 were to a man born adventurers, in the old sense of 

 the word. 



The men in the ranks were mostly young; yet 

 some were past their first youth. These had taken 

 part in the killing of the great buffalo herds, and 

 had fought Indians when the tribes were still on 

 the warpath. The younger ones, too, had led rough 

 lives; and the lines in their faces told of many a 

 hardship endured, and many a danger silently faced 

 with grim, unconscious philosophy. Some were 

 originally from the East, and had seen strange ad- 

 ventures in different kinds of life, from sailing round 

 the Horn to mining in Alaska. Others had been 

 born and bred in the West, and had never seen a 

 larger town than Santa Fe or a bigger body of 



