On the first day of April, 191-, Hayward Graham, wearing the single-barred yellow chevrons of a lance-corporal in Troop M of the 10th Cavalry, was sitting flat on the ground, perspiring and inwardly grumbling as he rubbed away at his sawed-off rifle, and mentally moralizing on his inglorious condition. There was he, almost a graduate of Harvard, a gentleman, accustomed to a bath-tub and a toothbrush, bound up hard and fast for three years’ association with a crowd of illiterate, roistering, unwashed, and in the present situation unwashable, negroes of every shade from pale yellow to ebony. Why, thought he, should negroes always be dumped all into one heap as if they were all of one grade? Didn’t the government know there were negroes and negroes? Whimsically he wondered why the officers didn’t sort them out among the troops like they did the horses, according to colour,—blacks, browns, yellows, ash-coloured, snuff-coloured. Then what possibilities in matching or contrasting the shades of the troopers with those of their mounts: black horse, yellow rider,—bay horse, black rider,—sorrel horse, gingersnap rider—no, that wouldn’t do, inartistic combination! And what colour of steed would tastily trim off that freckled abomination of a sergeant yonder? Can’t be done,—scheme’s a failure!—damn that sergeant anyhow, he had confiscated Graham’s only toothbrush to clean his gun with. Graham again records his oath to thrash him when his three years is up. But three years is an age. It will never roll round. Only two months has he been a soldier, and yet everything that happened before that is becoming vague—even the smile on Helen Phillips’ face. He cannot close his eyes and conjure up the picture as he did at first. Graham was out of temper. Cavalry wasn’t what it is cracked up to be, and a horse was of more trouble than convenience anyway, he was convinced. In the battle-drills the men had been put through so repeatedly day after day the horse played no part, and what riding Graham had done so far had served only to make him so sore and stiff that he could neither ride nor walk in comfort. He heartily repented his choice and wished he had taken the infantry, where a man has to look out only for himself and his gun. Oh, the troubles, the numberless troubles, of a green soldier!