I30 In the United States v 



blue-coated soldiers of Uncle Sam working — not 

 without a strong suspicion of Irish "bedads" and 

 German " Kreutz donner wetters " — hard at wheel 

 and leader, careless of frostbites, tugging, shoulder- 

 ing, whipping, and wheedling the horses down, 

 through the crashing ice, into the stream, and 

 " persuading " the mules who stuck fast in the 

 same, as if glorying in the obstinacy which was 

 causing them to be slowly, but surely, absorbed 

 in the quicksands ; and the bright, cold, yellow 

 northern sun slanting at us all, as if saying, " I 

 can't warm you, boys, but anyhow I'll light you." 

 The crash, the jingle, the half - humorous, half- 

 despairing " cries " when things went a little more 

 wrong than usual, all inspired me, till I did what 

 I had not done for years, took a run and a slide, 

 and came down a sounding bump that reminded 

 me of my boyhood days. 



' Over we got at last, and away we bowled over 

 the dry, yellow plain with the jangling teams at a 

 trot, and the mounted men, at least the non-military 

 part of them, careering madly, on horses as wildly 

 excited as themselves, over the firm, hard ground, 

 reckless of gopher holes. The military part of the 

 expedition behaved like soldiers, rear and avant 

 guard, with the gray old Irish sergeant looking after 

 them as carefully and as far-seeingly as if in 

 command of the wing of an army. 



' What a delicious canter over that mile or two 

 of sandy plain between the south and the deeper 



