28 The Rough Riders 



in their own dreadful style of warfare. Of course, 

 a man who had kept his nerve and held his own, 

 year after year, while living where each day and 

 night contained the threat of hidden death from a 

 foe whose goings and comings were unseen, was 

 not apt to lose courage when confronted with any 

 other enemy. An experience in following in the 

 trail of an enemy who might flee at one stretch 

 through fifty miles of death-like desert was a 

 good school out of which to come with profound 

 indifference for the ordinary hardships of cam- 

 paigning. 



As a rule, the men were more apt, however, to 

 have had experience in warring against white des- 

 peradoes and law-breakers than against Indians. 

 Some of our best recruits came from Colorado. 

 One, a very large, hawk-eyed man, Benjamin Frank- 

 lin Daniels, had been Marshal of Dodge City when 

 that pleasing town was probably the toughest abode 

 of civilized man to be found anywhere on the con- 

 tinent. In the course of the exercise of his rather 

 lurid functions as peace-officer he had lost half 

 of one ear "bitten off," it was explained to me. 

 Naturally, he viewed the dangers of battle with 

 philosophic calm. Such a man was, in reality, a 

 veteran even in his first fight, and was a tower of 

 strength to the recruits in his part of the line. With 

 him there came into the regiment a deputy-marshal 



