Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/253

Rh Of course this was encouraging, and I concluded that I might not have been so painfully ridiculous as I had supposed. For, be it known, I had been scarcely able to sleep the night before for thinking of what an outlandish figure I had cut that night before all those high-toned ladies, and of the sport my presence among them must have created.

However, I felt much better after the pleasant way in which Mrs. Elliott declared she looked at it, and with renewed self-complacence proceeded to discuss with the Colonel his plans for the next summer's campaign.

He informed me that he intended to go out with four companies of soldiers, and would locate a short distance east of last year's quarters, at a place where the town of Wadsworth has since been built. Plenty of good water and an abundance of grass were there, and with two companies he would make his headquarters there, the other two companies he would send about one hundred miles further east, to the vicinity of Steen's Mountain, and it was his wish that I should take charge of the scouts and operate between the two camps.

The Colonel and I talk matters over.