It is impossible to imagine the exquisite delight that this simple narrative gave. The idea of a real troop commander having been told to get into his tent just like a common soldier brought the tears to the men’s eyes, and the success of his story so turned the German’s head that he continued repeating to himself and to any one he met for several days: “That’s what he said, ‘You ged into your tent, TOO.’ That’s what he said.” Captain Hardie rode his detachment into camp on the third day, with horses so tired that they tried to lie down whenever there was a halt; and a horse must be very tired before he will do that. Captain Hardie’s riding-breeches were held together by the yellow stripes at their sides, and his hands were raw and swollen with the marks of the cactus needles, and his face burned and seared to a dull red. I had heard of him through the papers and from the officers at headquarters as the “Riding Captain,” and as the one who had during the Garza campaign been most frequently in the saddle, and least given to sending in detailed reports of his own actions. He had been absolutely alone for the two months he had been in the field. He was the father of his men, as all troop commanders must be; he had to doctor them when they were ill, to lend them money when the paymaster lost his way in the brush, to write their letters, and to listen to their grievances, and explain that it was not because they were not good soldiers that they could not go out and risk being shot on this or that particular scouting party--he could do all this for them, but he could not talk to them. He had to sit in front of his own camp fire and hear them laughing around theirs, and consider the loneliness of south-western Texas, which is the loneliness of the ocean at night. He could talk to his Mexican guides, because they, while they were under him, were not of his troop, and I believe it was this need to speak to some living soul that taught Captain Hardie to know Spanish as well as he did, and much more quickly than the best of tutors could have done in a year at the post.