ACROSS COUNTRY WITH A CAVALRY COLUMN. 119 



men, one cannot help but admire the soldierly ease and grace 

 with which they sit in their saddles, ranks well aligned, shoul- 

 ders squared, heads erect, eyes to the front, their harness and 

 equipments shining in the sunlight, not a buckle or strap 

 out of place, carbines clean, and swinging at their sides ready 

 for immediate use, brass - shelled cartridges peeping from the 

 well -filled prairie belts, horses and riders moving with the 

 quiet and orderly precision that long training and constant 

 habits of discipline alone can create. And the horses ! Did 

 you ever see better mounts? See that troop of sorrels that 

 is just now passing! They have been in the field for weeks, 

 and have passed through stream and canon, over plain and 

 desert, through thick alkali dust and sticky mud, yet how 

 their coats glisten, and how proudly they arch their necks 

 and champ their bits, moving along at a rapid walk, guided 

 by the firm pressure of the practised hands of their well- 

 drilled riders ! Though the uniforms are dim and weather- 

 beaten, though the harness and saddlery are of the simplest 

 description, with little or no attempt at ornamentation, do not 

 men and horses look ready for instant work, and work, too, of 

 the most serious kind ? And well have they proved by man}^ 

 a hard ride, by many a wakeful night, with hunger and thirst, 

 and the exposure to the pitiless blasts of many a Northern 

 winter, harder to contend ao^ainst than their sava2:e adversaries 

 of the wilderness, their readiness at all times ; for this is a fa- 

 mous regiment, and their motto of " Toujours pret !" which they 

 proudly bear is no idle boast. 



Column of route ! Winding over the trackless prairie 

 through the gray sage-brush, a thin blue thread in the im- 

 mense space about it, the command moves out. Prairie, more 

 prairie, still more prairie on every side, until lost and melting 

 into the horizon, except where, directly in the front, the distant 



