one was so liable to these misadventures, that
few could laugh at the expense of their neighbours.
Nobody could boast of being safe from
these auditious thefts, in spite of every imaginable
precaution. If you made game of you
comrade who had lost his calf, you might find, next
morning, that you had been robbed of your cow.

At that date the army was not yet provided
with those little tents, so convenient and so easy
to carry, which are now in  fashion. They slept,
then, with the sky for their roof; the foot
soldier, with a modest camp coverlet; the
luckier horseman, sheltered by his immense
cloak and the vast blanket, which, in the light
cavalry, was placed, folded into sixteen, between
the saddle and the horse's back. The police
station, placed as it is in the centre of the
bivouac, guarded by the sentinels of its own
regiment, and by all those of the infantry
besides, ought, one would think, to have nothing
to fear from thieves. Nevertheless, a station of
this kind was victimised by some thieves of the
province of Tlemcen one splendid summer's
night of 1836.

The police station in question, with the
exception of the sentinel, snored like one man,
including the quartermaster of the platoon, who,
profiting by the calmness of the atmosphere and
the mildness of the temperature, had taken off
nearly all his clothing, in order to enjoy complete
repose. Rolled up in a warm blanket, which
itself was encased with a thick cloak, with his
head reposing on a sack of barley, beneath which
he had placed his clothes, the brave sous-officer
was dreaming, perhaps, that he was carrying off
one of the emir's flags— the customary dream of
all Chasseurs d'Afrique in Abd-el-Kader's time
— when the trumpets of the regiment sounded
the ear-piercing summons to awake.

"Already!" said the happy sleeper, with a
yawn. " Are we never to enjoy twenty-four
hours of quiet? Sentinel!"

"Here, quartermaster. Do you want
anything?"

"Yes; hand me my pantaloons and my boots,
that I may dress myself behind the curtains.
You will tiud them under the barley-sack."

The sentinel lifted the sack, and announced,
"Neither pantaloons nor boots do I see there."

"What do you mean? Neither boots nor—
I say, you there, you fellows of the guard, get
up a little quicker than that. What have you
done with my boots?"

"Your boots?" replied a chasseur, who had
followed his quartermaster's example in
relieving his feet of their casings during the night,
"I can't find my own!''

"Fortunately I only took off my braces,"
muttered the brigadier, who sought in vain for
the two leather straps so designated.

"In that case we had best say no more about
it," the quartermaster hastily replied. " While
we were fast asleep, some Bedouin thief has
paid us a visit. We must conceal the matter, if
possible; only you will allow me to observe that
you have all slept on guard, like so many logs of
wood, be it said without offending you."

As usual, the chasseurs made oath that they
had watched conscientiously; but the mischief
was done, and they had now only to remedy it.
Some comrades, who were fortunately supplied
with a change, helped to furnish the missing
articles; and the only individual on whom evil
consequences fell was the chasseur, who was
obliged to return unshod to his squadron, and to
pass in that state before the officer of the platoon
to which he belonged. That officer had not seen
much service in Africa, having come there lately
by exchange.

"Ah, ha!" he said to the, poor chasseur,
"You let your boots be stolen while you were on
guard! Villanous soldier!"

It was a villanous expression which the young
officer made use of; but discipline is severe;
and the chasseur, really an excellent soldier,
made no other reply than by biting his moustache,
on which he could not prevent a hot tear from
falling.

Four days after this adventure the officer's
horse was stolen, and the chasseur took no
further revenge on his superior than to remark,
"You now see, lieutenant, that everybody is
liable to these accidents— the Bedouins are such
thieves!— but the parties robbed are not the
more villanous soldiers for that."

Captain Cavaignac— as he then was— who
was exceedingly beloved by his men, possessed
a magnificent mare and foal, which were confided
to the care of a Chasseur d'Afrique, who every
morning took them to graze in the orchards
which extend around the ramparts of Méchouar,
taking good care also to keep within gunshot of
the sentinels who were placed at the outposts.
One day, while the brave fellow, reckoning
perhaps a little too much on the neighbourhood
of the sentinels, had gone to sleep beneath the
shade of an olive-tree, an Arab marauder, gliding
like an adder through the grass, managed to
secure the colt without a single human witness
of the theft. On awaking, the poor fellow in
charge could not believe his eyes. In vain he
searched the environs, in vain he interrogated
the sentinels, who had not lost sight of the mare
for a single instant. They had not heard the
slightest noise; and they considered the colt's
disappearance so extraordinary a fact, that they
assured their comrade that he must have
forgotten to bring the young one in the morning
with its mother. The chasseur, convinced of
the contrary, as well as of the uselessness of any
further search, led back the mare to Méchouar,
and, with tears in his eyes, related, his
misadventure to Captain Cavaignac.

"They have contrived to steal my colt,
captain, but I assure you it was no fault of mine;
and I mean to catch the thief, I give you my
word for it."

"I forbid you to go and meet your death for
the sake of a wretched colt which is lost past
recovery, " replied the captain. "One day or
other, situated as we are, we might be obliged
to kill and eat it; and I had rather, ma foi! that
the poor little creature should be alive and well
with the Arabs than dead with us."