While looking through these large stables I heard of a horse that had been sent to a stable to be sold on account of some changes in the family of the owner. I went and looked at her, and was greatly pleased. I mounted her, rode a few miles, and returned perfectly satisfied and delighted. In a short time I paid the price asked, and was her happy owner. It was love at first sight, love that never failed, but grew stronger and stronger through all the years that we journeyed together. I took her on board the steamer with me, and returned to headquarters. Next I procured saddle, bridle, halter, spurs, leggins, and saddle-bags. For leggins I bought a yard and a half of butternut jean, which was cut into two equal parts, and the buttons and button-holes so arranged that I could wrap them tightly around my legs from a short distance above my knees, and button them on. They were secured from slipping down by a pair of strings which were wound about the legs both above and below the knees, in such a manner as not to interfere with their free movement in either riding or walking. A good deal of skill, as well as a good deal of awkwardness, may be displayed in putting on and tying on a pair of leggins; and when a man displays unusual facility and skill in this matter in his travels through the Brush, he is at once taken to be either an itinerant preacher--or a horse-thief. In long horseback journeys these leggins are invaluable as a protection against mud, rain, and cold. I have traveled over the muddiest roads, many days and weeks, when, on arriving at the house of some hospitable friend, I was so completely bespattered and covered with mud that I looked very much like the roads through which I had been traveling; but, on taking off my leggins and overcoat, I laid aside the most of the mud with them, and so presented a very respectable appearance. But the saddle-bags were indispensable. In them I carried all the changes in my wardrobe, and all such articles for my personal comfort as one can have whose home is on horseback; together with such reports, documents, and papers, as were indispensable to me in the prosecution of my labors. With a large blanket-shawl rolled compactly together, and strapped with my umbrella behind my saddle upon a pad attached to it for this purpose, I was prepared to travel without any regard to rain or weather.