2i 8 The Rough Riders 



in first-class sanitary condition. This took up some 

 time, of course, and there were other matters in 

 connection with the mustering out which had to be 

 attended to; but I could always get two or three 

 hours a day free from work. Then I would summon 

 a number of the officers, Kane, Greenway, Good- 

 rich, Church, Ferguson, Mcllhenny, Frantz, Ballard 

 and others, and we would gallop down to the beach 

 and bathe in the surf, or else go for long rides over 

 the beautiful rolling plains, thickly studded with 

 pools which were white with water-lilies. Some- 

 times I went off alone with my orderly, young 

 Gordon Johnston, one of the best men in the regi- 

 ment ; he was a nephew of the Governor of Ala- 

 bama, and when at Princeton had played on the 

 eleven. We had plenty of horses, and these rides 

 were most enjoyable. Galloping over the open, roll- 

 ing country, through the cool fall evenings, made us 

 feel as if we were out on the great Western plains 

 and might at any moment start deer from the brush, 

 or see antelope stand and gaze, far away, or rouse a 

 band of mighty elk and hear their horns clatter as 

 they fled. 



An old friend, Baron von Sternburg, of the Ger- 

 man Embassy, spent a week in camp with me. He 

 had served, when only seventeen, in the Franco- 

 Prussian War as a hussar, and was a noted sharp- 

 shooter being "the little baron" who is the hero of 



