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me gallop around in a circle with a 10-foot radius, both hands high over my head, he would bellow "Plus vitel Plus vitel".

The French style of riding was quite different from ours. I found it awkward and uncomfortable at first, and event with long practice I think I should have preferred ours. At Port Oglethorpe Sands had taught us to ride as cowboys do, using the deep McClellan saddle and with stirrups let out almost to full leg-length. The French rode more like jockeys in a race, using the same shallow English-type saddle. They shortened their stirrups, though not quite so far as jockeys do. The Frenchman posted to his horse's trot, letting the shocks be absorbed by his leg muscles instead of his liver. In our style the rider's body took whatever shaking the horse chose to give it. At Fort Oglethorpe I had felt that I was a better than average rider. At Saumur I did not shine, though I did manage never to fall off.

One class hour each week was given to a subject called "Hippology". It had to do with the care and feeding of horses. An artillery officer did not have to feed, groom or show horses, but his men did. So the officer had to know enough to judge whether the horses were being cared for properly or not. An officer had to inspect his battery's horses from time to time, and it would have been silly to attempt that if you did not know what to look for.

I was humilliated on two occasions at Saumur. I have written of one, when my section was scheduled to ride bicycles out into the country for field exercises and I found myself the only man in the section who had never before been on a bike. The second occasion was in the class in Hippology. Each of us was required to run at a horse from behind, put our hands on his rump and leapfrog into riding position astride his back. I was the only man in our section, perhaps the only one in the whole school, who could not do it. The instructor did not let me give up easily but I never made it. Back in high school we had played a variety of leapfrog called "one-and-over". The idea was to take a running jump from a mark on the ground and clear the back of another boy standing humped over eight or ten feet away. If everyone made it the jump distance was increased by a foot or so, and that went on until somebody missed. Then he became "It" and had to take the humped-over stance. At that game my standing had always been the lowest in the league.