During this period two weighty questions were being handled by the silver-tongued orators of the Senate,――namely, the ratification of the peace treaty and the retention of the Philippine Islands. For three days I attended this session of Congress to hear the elucidating arguments on these subjects, as propounded by Senators Foraker, Hoar, Tillman and Vest, who seemed to handle in arbitrary opposition the burden of the questions. These debates were exceedingly interesting, the eloquent orators at times becoming so animated as to cast parliamentary rules asunder, and occasionally requiring the necessity of being rapped to order by the Speaker of the House. After spending several pleasant days in Washington, I journeyed to the Pennsylvania Railroad station to catch my train on the “Sea-board Air Line” for the city of Atlanta. While having my ticket validated for berth reservation, a very military-looking soldier appeared at the window of the ticket-office and made inquiries regarding a train for Atlanta, Georgia. Having been recently mustered out of the service, I sought to learn the fellow’s regiment; addressing him interrogatively, I was informed that he had enlisted in Philadelphia, and was _en route_ to Fort McPherson, Georgia, to join the Third United States Cavalry. Although the fellow appeared very military, he said this was his first enlistment, but that he had just stepped out of the stirrups of a saddle in the Indian Territory, where his experience as a cowboy he related in a most interesting manner. Boarding the train together, we were ere long engaged in a hand of “seven up,” as the wheels clipped off the miles at the rate of forty-eight per hour. At Columbia, South Carolina, the train was boarded by a large number of soldiers of the Second Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, who had recently been mustered out with their regiment, and were _en route_ to their respective destinations. Two sergeants――namely, Clark and Gautrell, two very agreeable fellows――joined us in a sociable game of cards. Although they had served in a Tennessee regiment, their homes were in Georgia. The conversation from this point on was all war talk and “broncho-busting.” The cavalryman’s interesting anecdotes of branding and roping cattle, the tedium of the “round-up,” the vigilance necessary in protecting calves from the howling coyote, the breaking of horses, and his simple life as a cow-puncher in Oklahoma and the Indian Territory, were as fascinating as “Pony-tracks” by Frederick Remington. Before reaching Atlanta he gave me his name, Harry K. Loomis, and said he hoped to be assigned to Troop “M” of the Third. I handed him a card with my permanent address, at the same time wishing him a successful career as a soldier, and hoping the fates would ordain the continuation of a friendship that had so suddenly and unexpectedly sprung up between us like a preordained affinity.