In the Trenches 185 



big-game hunter, who had done some good ex- 

 ploring work in Africa. I always wished I could 

 have had him in my regiment. As for Dorst, he 

 was peculiarly fitted to command a regiment. Al- 

 though Howze and Andrews were not in my brigade 

 I saw a great deal of them, especially of Howze, 

 who would have made a nearly ideal regimental 

 commander. They were both natural cavalry-men 

 and of most enterprising natures, ever desirous of 

 pushing to the front and of taking the boldest course. 

 The view Howze always took of every emergency 

 (a view which found prompt expression in his ac- 

 tions when the opportunity offered) made me feel 

 like an elderly conservative. 



The week of non-fighting was not all a period of 

 truce ; part of the time was passed under a kind of 

 nondescript arrangement, when we were told not to 

 attack ourselves, but to be ready at any moment to 

 repulse an attack and to make preparations for 

 meeting it. During these times I busied myself 

 in putting our trenches into first-rate shape and in 

 building bomb-proofs and traverses. One night I 

 got a detail of sixty men from the First, Ninth, and 

 Tenth, whose officers always helped us in every way, 

 and with these, and with sixty of my own men, I 

 dug a long, zigzag trench in advance of the salient 

 of my line out to a knoll well in front, from which 

 we could command the Spanish trenches and block- 



