I would not write this to you in such detail, except that I think it will interest you to see that the hike is more than a mere march, and that it is making every one of us advance in his department of the war game. We squads, I hope, are learning to do as we are told, though you see how blind everything is to us. The intricate problems of the officers come out in conference. There the men sit on the ground in a great three-quarter-circle, grouping themselves whenever possible around the men with maps. The major likewise has hisn, and the officers theirn. The major makes a general statement of the work of the day, and the captains then report on their particular operations. When you see what exact notes they have taken of every operation: the precise moment of sending out parties and of receiving reports, the minuteness with which they locate every action, the science with which they carry out the work that falls to them, and the team-play that animates them, you see that this is no old-style cut-and-dried "sham battle," but an actual study, of course on a small scale, of fighting seriously carried out by well-trained officers. It has deeply impressed me with the long and hard work necessary to make an officer; and then, turning to the man's side of it, it becomes plainer and plainer that it takes time, much time, to train a private or a corporal into a reliable man on patrol. One hard thing for us amateurs to learn is the proper writing of messages containing military information. It is hard to decide what is important enough to send, and then how to word the despatch. Tradition from an earlier camp has handed down this model: "The enemy are in sight and are about to do something." Where, when, how many, some notion, however vague, of the enemy's disposition--all forgotten between excitement and too great responsibility. The march home was the hardest part of the day. The interest of the skirmish kept us going; but the three miles back to camp at a quick pace took it out of us all. I had not known I was so tired; the strain wore hard on me; it seemed ages before we sighted camp, and then ages and ages before we reached it. But this experience was the same as on Monday, for though the very vigorous ones were able to whistle and sing, to the help of us all, again I began to hear grumbling all about me. We reached camp at last, and poor Reardon when we broke ranks dropped on the ground at his tent door, without the energy to unbutton the flaps, and in a minute was fast asleep there.