Hilary, contradictorily enough, lost all sense of injury and shame in sorrow that he should have divulged Bixby’s agency in the matter and brought this disaster upon the trooper, who perhaps had only intended a little diversion, and had neither the good taste nor the good sense to perceive its offensiveness to the officer. Bixby _had_ served in a band generally reputed bushwhackers, who did little more than plunder both sides, and in which discipline was necessarily slight. And thus after this episode they were better friends than before. True, in the days of dearth, for these men must needs starve as well as fight, when only rations of corn were served out, which the soldiers parched and ate by the fire, and which were so scanty that a strict watch was kept to prevent certain of them from robbing their own horses, on the condition and speed of which their very lives depended, Hilary, as in honor bound, being detailed for this duty, reported his greedy comrade, but in view of the half-famished condition of the troops Bixby’s punishment was light, and the incident did not break off their outward semblance of friendship, although one may be sure Bixby kept account of it. So the years went--those wild years of hard riding and hard fighting; sleeping on the ground under the open skies whether cloudy or clear--it was months after it was all over before Hilary could accustom himself to sleep in a bed; roused by the note of the trumpet, sometimes while the stars were yet white in the dark heavens, with no token of dawn save a great translucent, tremulous planet heralding the morn, and that wild, sweet, exultant strain of reveille, so romantic, so stirring, that it might seem as if it had floated down, proclaiming the day, from that splendid vanguard of the sun. So they went--those wild years, all at once over.