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lives.”
    â€œNo, I suppose not,” Jeff replied. “Thank you for warning me.” But as he performed his duties about the kitchen, Jeff felt repaid for the captain’s slur on his name.
    He did his work so well that on the sixth day he was dismissed an hour early and wandered down to the stables to see the horses.
    There he saw an old teamster leading half a dozen fine-looking cavalry mounts around and around the corral. The old man wore a white undershirt and blue army pants with scarlet stripes down the sides. He was muttering angrily to himself. The horses looked jaded, as if they had been ridden hard.
    Suddenly a gust of wind whipped a piece of paper across the corral. Frightened, one of the animals jerked loose from the man and started running for the open gate, his long rein dragging in the dust.
    â€œHo! You black dog!” shouted the old teamster, but the horse paid no attention. The gate was near Jeff. Quickly he ran in front of it, raising his arms and calling to the horse soothingly. The animal plunged to a stop, eyeing Jeff distrustfully. Still talking to him, Jeff was able to recover the rein and return the horse to the teamster.
    â€œSir,” said Jeff, saluting, “I was raised on a farm and know something about horses. I’ll be glad to help you walk ’em. Why are they in such a lather?”
    The old teamster must have been impressed by that “sir” and also the salute. He handed Jeff three of the halter reins.
    â€œThese dom stable boys are no account,” the sergeant growled in his rich dialect. “If I send them to the crick to wather the horses, they bile the wather in them on their way back.”
    As they walked along, Jeff stole a sidelong look at his companion and saw that the teamster was small, wiry, and had lots of wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. His face was covered with black whiskers, as though he hadn’t shaved in a week. Jeff judged him to be nearly sixty years of age.
    Later Jeff helped Mike Dempsey, for that was the teamster’s name, to rub down the animals, return them to their stalls, and feed them. As they worked, he told Mike all about himself and about his run-in with Captain Clardy.
    Mike chuckled when Jeff related what he had said when ordered to “Fix bayonets.” Without a word, the old Irishman carefully knocked the ashes out of his cob pipe and stuffed it into his side pocket.
    Walking into his small office in the harness room, he came out with a bayonet and an old, well-oiled rifle. He showed Jeff every command involving bayonets in the manual of arms, then gave him the gun and bayonet and began to drill him. Jeff soon got the hang of it.
    â€œAfter this, me boy, you fix it whin he says to, whither it’s broke or not,” counseled Mike.
    In spite of his good intentions, Jeff found out next day that a volunteer soldier serving under volunteer officers has a lot to learn about military etiquette. Henry Slaughter, a neighbor from Linn County, had joined up earlier than Jeff and secured a commission. He approached Jeff on the drill field and handed him a letter from home.
    Jeff knew Slaughter well. They had hunted rabbits together many times in the Bussey cornfield.
    Grateful, Jeff blurted, “Thanks, Henry.” Slaughter drew himself up haughtily and cursed Jeff roundly for his familiarity. And Jeff learned that two neighbors of yesterday could today be separated by an impassable gulf when two bits’ worth of tinsel was pinned on the shoulders of one and not the other.
    When the men in Jeff’s outfit elected their own noncommissioned officers, they chose for sergeant Pete Millholland, a big, broad-beamed farmer with white hair and blue eyes, who had homesteaded along the Kaw River, near Lawrence. Jeff was surprised at the choice, since Millholland was green as a gourd about military procedure and wore his uniform in a slipshod manner.
    As a drillmaster, he must have been the worst in the