field, he had been sent to Texas to recuperate his health and to recruit men to fill up some of the depleted cavalry regiments. He questioned Bob very closely, but the latter gave satisfactory replies, and, having passed the surgeon, his "descriptive list" was taken and he was duly sworn into the service. There were a number of newly-enlisted men hanging about the office waiting to be ordered to some post, and one of them, who acted as quartermaster-sergeant, took Bob into a back room and served out a uniform to him.

"What shall I do with my citizen's rig?" asked Bob as he twisted himself first on one side and then on the other to see how he looked in his new clothes. "I suppose I can't keep it?"

"Of course not," was the sergeant's quick reply. "It would come too handy in case you should make up your mind to desert."

"I shall never make up my mind to any such thing," exclaimed Bob, indignantly. "I have gone into this business with my eyes open, and I am going to see it through."

"That's the right spirit," said the sergeant. "But wait till you have ridden twelve hundred miles at a stretch in pursuit of a band of hostiles, and perhaps you'll weaken."

"What do you know about hostiles?" asked Bob.

"Well, I should think I ought to know all about them, for I have been there. This is my third enlistment in the regular army."

"Is that so?" exclaimed Bob. "I should think that after so many years' service you ought to be an officer."

"I was a non-com when I was discharged, and that is as high as any enlisted man can get now," replied the soldier. "I was a captain during the war, but they don't take men out of the ranks and make officers of them any more. When I enlisted this time I had to go in as a private; but I have my old warrants in my pocket, and perhaps they will help me get a new one when I reach the post where I am to serve."

"What's a non-com?" asked Bob.

"Why, a non-commissioned officer," answered the soldier, staring at Bob as if he were surprised at his ignorance. "You never did any soldiering, I'll bet."

"No, I never did," replied the recruit; "this is my first experience."

"And before you get through with it you will wish that you had never had any experience at all."

"Don't you think I shall like the army?"

"Well, I know I don't like it."

"Then why did you enlist again?"

"Because I couldn't do anything else. A man who has soldiered for nearly fourteen years isn't fit for civil life. Now, make your citizen's clothes into a bundle and take them around the corner to a little Jew store you will find there. Mose buys all the recruits' cast-off clothing. He'll not give you much for them, but the little he will give you will keep you in gingerbread as long as you stay in the city."

"How long do you suppose that will be?"

"I am sure I don't know, but if recruits keep coming in as rapidly as they have during the last few days, the lieutenant will probably take a squad off next week."

"Where will he take it?"

"That's a conundrum. A private never knows where he is going until he gets there."

"Where do you eat and sleep?"

"We take our meals at the restaurant next door, and having no bunks we sleep on the benches in the office. You can go about the city as much as you please, but you must be sure and report at meal-time. If you fail to do that, you will have the police after you."

"Why will I?" asked Bob in surprise.

"Because the lieutenant will think you have deserted."

Bob was beginning to feel the tight rein of military discipline already. At home he had always been accustomed to go and come when he pleased, and he did not like the idea of having his liberty restricted or of being obliged to obey without question the orders of a boy scarcely older than himself. But it was too late to think of that now. The youthful officer was backed up by the entire military and police force of the United States, and there was no such thing as getting out of reach of his authority.

"I am in for it," thought Bob as he rolled up his clothes and started for the little Jew store around the corner, "but I don't know that I could have done anything else. I shall have plenty to eat and a place to sleep, and at the same time I shall be earning money to pay off that debt I owe Dave Evans. What an idiot I was to keep that money! To pay for that one act of folly and dishonesty I am compelled to waste some of the best years of my life in the army. I hope I shall get a chance to show them that I am no coward, if I am a greenhorn."

It was little indeed that Mose gave Bob for the articles he had to offer for sale—just four dollars for clothing that had cost over thirty; but those four dollars made him feel a little more independent. They brought him a few delicacies to supplement the plain fare that was served up to him and his companions at the cheap restaurant at which they took their meals, and were the means of gaining him the friendship of one of the recruits, Bristow by name, who stuck to him like a leech until the last cent had been expended.

Bob remained in Galveston nearly two weeks, and during that time he saw everything of interest there was to be seen in the city. Then he began to grow tired of having nothing to do, and took to hanging about the office as the others did, and making comments upon those who presented themselves for enlistment. He was glad indeed when the lieutenant mustered all the recruits one night and ordered them to report at the office the next morning at nine o'clock, sharp; but he was provoked because the officer did not tell them where they were going. This, however, only proved the truth of the old sergeant's words—that a private never knew where he was going until he got there. Bob knew that they were bound for Brownsville when a steamer landed them there a few hours later, and he found out that they were going from there to Fort Lamoine when they arrived at that post after a weary tramp of more than three hundred miles.

The recruits camped beside the trail at night, and during the daytime plodded along behind the army-wagon which contained their tents, blankets, rations and cooking-utensils. It was very fatiguing to all of them, and it was not long before Bob began to learn something of the dispositions of the men with whom he was to be intimately associated during his term of enlistment. The majority of them grumbled lustily, and even talking of deserting, and there were not more than two or three besides himself who bore the discomforts of the march with anything like patience. There was not much restriction placed upon their actions, and, although they were not permitted to stray away from the line of march during the daytime, they were allowed to visit any ranches or farm-houses that might be in the neighborhood of their camping-grounds. The people they met along the route were very liberal with the products of their gardens and with their milk, butter and eggs, and the recruits fared sumptuously every day; but it would have been much better for some of them if they had remained in camp at night and left the settlers entirely alone. Not a few of the men with whom they exchanged civilities unconsciously sowed among them seeds of discontent that were destined eventually to bear a fruitful crop of trouble. By endeavoring to live up to the sentiments they heard expressed on every hand, more than one of the recruits found themselves landed in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth.

"I don't see why you chaps swear away your liberty, and work for thirteen dollars a month, when you might just as well