However, every one in the commands knew every one else, and there was no confusion.
A great part of that night was spent in swapping stories of recent experiences.

All of them were thrilling, even to veteran campaigners fresh from the trail.

There was no need of drawing the long bow in those days.

The truth was plenty exciting enough to suit the most exacting, and we sat about like schoolboys, drinking in each other's tales, and telling our own in exchange.
A story of a personal adventure and a hairbreadth escape in which Lieutenant De Rudio figured was so typical of the fighting days of the West that I want my readers to know it.

I shall tell it, as nearly as I can, just as it came to me around the flickering fire in that picturesque border camp.
De Rudio had just returned from his adventure, and he told it to us between puffs of his pipe so realistically that I caught several of my old friends of the Plains peering about into the darkness as if to make sure that no lurking redskins were creeping up on them.
In the fight of a few days before De Rudio was guarding a pony crossing with eight men when one of them sang out: "Lieutenant, get your horse, quick.