But there's a new lot of prime-looking cattle just arrived, and they are going like hot cakes; so come along quick and help me get something rideable." Half an hour later Ridge found himself in the first army camp he had ever visited, amid a body of men the most heterogeneous but typically American ever gathered together.

Millionaire dudes and clubmen from the great Eastern cities fraternized with the wildest representatives of far Western life.

Men of every calling and social position, all wearing blue flannel shirts and slouch hats, were here mingled on terms of perfect equality.

They were drilling, shooting, skylarking, playing cards, performing incredible feats on horseback, cooking, eating, singing, yelling, and behaving in every respect like a lot of irrepressible schoolboys out for a holiday.

Here a red-headed Irish corporal damned the awkwardness of a young Boston swell, fresh from Harvard, who had been detailed as cook in a company kitchen; while, close at hand, a New-Yorker of the bluest blood was washing dishes with the deftness gained from long experience on a New Mexican sheep-ranch.
As Ridge and Rollo passed through one of the canvas-bordered streets of this unique camp, the former suddenly leaped aside with an exclamation of alarm.