"Yes," said Jack; "and don't you know, Bill, how he drank up all the
coffee last night, and put the rest by for himself till the morning!"
"He pretends to know everything," resumed the captain; "nobody must
give orders but he! It's, oh! we must do this; and, oh! we must do
that; and the tent must be pitched here, and the horses must be
picketed there; for nobody knows as well as he does."
We were a little surprised at this disclosure of domestic dissensions
among our allies, for though we knew of their existence, we were not
aware of their extent. The persecuted captain seeming wholly at a
loss as to the course of conduct that he should pursue, we
recommended him to adopt prompt and energetic measures; but all his
military experience had failed to teach him the indispensable lesson
to be "hard," when the emergency requires it.
"For twenty years," he repeated, "I have been in the British army,
and in that time I have been intimately acquainted with some two
hundred officers, young and old, and I never yet quarreled with any
man. Oh, 'anything for a quiet life!' that's my maxim."
We intimated that the prairie was hardly the place to enjoy a quiet
life, but that, in the present circumstances, the best thing he could
do toward securing his wished-for tranquillity, was immediately to
put a period to the nuisance that disturbed it.
