In the month of April, 1912, I abruptly quitted the service of my government. The reasons which impelled me were very serious. You remember that my active life began with the discovery of a document of such personal and political significance that government agents followed me all over Europe until I drove a bargain with them for it. In the winter of 1912, by a chain of circumstances I must keep to myself, that self-same document came again into my possession. I knew enough then, and was ambitious enough, to determine that this time I would utilize to the full the power which possession of it gave me. But it could not be used in Germany. Therefore I disappeared. There was an immediate search for me, which was most active in Russia. I was not in Russia nor in Europe. After running over in mind all the most unlikely places I could put myself I had found one that seemed ideal. While they were scouring Russia for me I was making my way across the Atlantic Ocean in the capacity of steward in the steerage of the steamship _Kroonland_ of the Red Star Line. [Illustration: The telegram von der Goltz received from Villa, inviting him to go to Mexico with Dr. Rachbaum, Villa’s physician, and join the Constitutionalist army.] The _Kroonland_ docked in New York City in May, 1912. I left her as abruptly as I had left a prouder service. Three days later a sorry-looking vagabond, I had applied for enlistment in the United States Army and had been accepted. I was sent to the recruiting camp at Fort Slocum, and under the severe eye of a sergeant began to learn my drill. It was toward the middle of May that I—or rather, “Frank Wachendorf”—enlisted. After a stretch of recruit training at Fort Slocum, I was assigned to the Nineteenth Infantry, then at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I learned my drill—shades of Gross Lichterfelde!—with extreme ease. That is the only single thing that I was officially asked to do. But early in my short and pleasant career as a United States soldier something happened which gave me special occupation. My small library was discovered. Among the volumes were Mahan’s “Sea Power” and Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall”—not just the books one would look for among the possessions of a country lout hardly able to stammer twenty words in English. But the mishap turned in my favor. My captain sent for me. “Wachendorf,” he said, “you probably have your own reasons for being where you are. That is none of my business. But you don’t have to stay there. If you want to go in for a commission you are welcome to my books and to any aid I can give you.” Thereafter life in the Nineteenth was decidedly agreeable. I set myself sincerely and whole-heartedly at the task of winning a commission in your army. I believe I might eventually have won it, too. But fate revealed other plans for me when I had been an American soldier some nine months.