In a second search, in which most of the officers of the regiment took a lively interest, there was found, in Frank Moore's Battalion of the Second Illinois Cavalry, a tall, gaunt, lean, haggard, thoroughbred-looking beast, which had been captured from Merryweather's men in Western Tennessee. He was not a handsome horse, nor was he to the ordinary eye in any respect promising; but a trial showed that he had that peculiar whalebone character, and wiry, nervous action, which come only with blood, and without which no horse is really fit for the saddle. The chances were very much against him. He did not possess the first element of beauty, save in a clean-cut head, a prominent eye, a quick ear, a thin neck, sloping shoulders, high withers, and the brilliant activity that no abuse had been able to conquer. He was held in abeyance until a careful examination of the two thousand horses at the post showed that, even as he stood, he had no equal there for my purposes. Since he had come into the army he had been in the possession of a private soldier, who had done much scouting duty, and he had been initiated (successfully) into the scrub-racing which Illinois soldiers much affected. The serious amount of one hundred and forty dollars was hazarded in the venture, and he was transferred to our stable. That increment of value which always follows the purchase of a new horse came rapidly in his case, and it needed only a few gallops on the breezy bluffs beyond Fort Halleck, to install him as prime favorite among the headquarters' mess. He was deemed worthy of the noble name of Max, and under Ike's careful grooming he returned daily toward the blooming condition that only Second Illinois abuse had been able to subdue. In an early race with the Hun we were ingloriously beaten; but the Hun rode a marvellous little blood mare, blooming with hundreds of bushels of oats, and with two years of careful handling. Max, though beaten, was not discouraged, and seemed to say that with time and good treatment he would be ready for a more successful trial. During his period of tutelage, and while he was kept from all excessive exertion, he was inducted into the mysteries of the art, to him quite new, of jumping timber. Columbus had been occupied by Rebel and Union soldiers since the outbreak of the war, and its fences, far and wide, had all disappeared; but nowhere in the world was there a greater variety nor a more ample stock of fallen trees, whose huge boles made capital leaping-bars; and over these, almost daily, for some months, beginning with the smaller ones and going gradually to the largest we could find, Max learned to carry a heavy weight with a power and precision that even Ruby could not have excelled.