were after him. Tom and I mounted our horses and soon overhauled him. He will not hear the last of it for some time.
Charlie Reynolds killed two big-horn sheep to-day and gave me the finest of the two heads. I have it in my tent now and hope to preserve it, although I came away without my preservative powders.
Nearly all my amusement is with "Bos" and Tom. We lunch together every day. . . . I have about made up my mind that when I go on expeditions like this you are to go too. You could have endured this as well as not. . . .
Powder River, about Twenty Miles above its Mouth,
June 9, 1876.
. . . We are now in a country heretofore unvisited by white men. Reynolds, who had been guiding the command, lost his way the other day, and General Terry did not know what to do about finding a road from O'Fallon's Creek across to Powder River. I told him I thought I could guide the column. He assented; so Tom, "Bos," and I started ahead, with company D and the scouts as escort, and brought the command to this point, over what seems to be the only practicable route for miles on either side, through the worst kind of Bad Lands. The general did not believe it possible to find a road through. When, after a hard day's work, we arrived at this river by a good, easy road, making thirty-two miles in one day, he was delighted and came to congratulate me.
Yesterday I finished a Galaxy article, which will go in the next mail; so, you see, I am not entirely idle. Day before yesterday I rode nearly fifty miles, arose yesterday morning, and went to work at my article, determined to finish it before night, which I did, amidst constant interruptions. It is now nearly midnight, and I must go to my bed, for reveille comes at three.
As a slight evidence that I am not very conceited regarding my personal appearance, I have not looked in a mirror or seen the reflection of my beautiful (?) countenance, including the fine growth of auburn whiskers, since I looked in the glass at Lincoln.[1]
- ↑ This reference to the color of his beard, which he only allowed to grow on campaigns, was a reminder of the fact upon which we had long since agreed: that though Titian might have found beauty in that tint, we did not.
