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Horse's Tale, A

<h1>A HORSE’S TALE</h1> <h3>CHAPTER I—SOLDIER BOY—PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF</h3> I am Buffalo Bill’s horse.  I have spent my life under his saddle—with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on.  He is over six feet, is young, hasn’t an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself.  Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch.  Yes, he is a sight to look at then—and I’m part of it myself. I am his favorite horse, out of dozens.  Big as he is, I have carried him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time.  I am not large, but I am built on a business basis.  I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there’s not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don’t know as well as we know the bugle-calls.  He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very important.  In such a position as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the place.  I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered.  It may be so, it is not for me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think.  Buffalo Bill taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught myself the rest.  Lay a row of moccasins before me—Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please—and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.  Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech. I know some of the Indian signs—the signs they make with their hands, and by signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.  Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my teeth; and I’ve done it, too; at least I’ve dragged him out of the battle when he was wounded.  And not just once, but twice.  Yes, I know a lot of things.  I remember forms, and gaits, and faces; and you can’t disguise a person that’s done me a kindness so that I won’t know him thereafter wherever I find him.  I know the art of searching for a trail, and I know the stale track from the fresh.  I can keep a trail all by myself, with Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him—he will tell you so.  Many a time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at dawn, “Take the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me.”  Then he goes to sleep.  He knows he can trust me, because I have a reputation.  A scout horse that has a reputation does not play with it. My mother was all American—no alkali-spider about her, I can tell you; she was of the best blood of Kentucky, the bluest Blue-grass aristocracy, very proud and acrimonious—or maybe it is ceremonious.  I don’t know which it is.  But it is no matter; size is the main thing about a word, and that one’s up to standard.  She spent her military life as colonel of the Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough service—distinguished service it was, too.  I mean, she carried the Colonel; but it’s all the same.  Where would he be without his horse?  He wouldn’t arrive.  It takes two to make a colonel of dragoons.  She was a fine dragoon horse, but never got above that.  She was strong enough for the scout service, and had the endurance, too, but she couldn’t quite come up to the speed required; a scout horse has to have steel in his muscle and lightning in his blood. My father was a bronco.  Nothing as to lineage—that is, nothing as to recent lineage—but plenty good enough when you go a good way back.  When Professor Marsh was out here hunting bones for the chapel of Yale University he found skeletons of horses no bigger than a fox, bedded in the rocks, and he said they were ancestors of my father.  My mother heard him say it; and he said those skeletons were two million years old, which astonished her and made her Kentucky pretensions look small and pretty antiphonal, not to say oblique.  Let me see. . . . I used to know the meaning of those words, but . . . well, it was years ago, and ’tisn’t as vivid now as it was when they were fresh.  That sort of words doesn’t keep, in the kind of climate we have out here.  Professor Marsh said those skeletons were fossils.  So that makes me part blue grass and part fossil; if there is any older or better stock, you will have to look for it among the Four Hundred, I reckon.  I am satisfied with it.  And am a happy horse, too, though born out of wedlock. And now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a forty-day scout, away up as far as the Big Horn.  Everything quiet.  Crows and Blackfeet squabbling—as usual—but no outbreaks, and settlers feeling fairly easy. The Seventh Cavalry still in garrison, here; also the Ninth Dragoons, two artillery companies, and some infantry.  All glad to see me, including General Alison, commandant.  The officers’ ladies and children well, and called upon me—with sugar.  Colonel Drake, Seventh Cavalry, said some pleasant things; Mrs. Drake was very complimentary; also Captain and Mrs. Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry; also the Chaplain, who is always kind and pleasant to me, because I kicked the lungs out of a trader once.  It was Tommy Drake and Fanny Marsh that furnished the sugar—nice children, the nicest at the post, I think. That poor orphan child is on her way from France—everybody is full of the subject.  Her father was General Alison’s brother; married a beautiful young Spanish lady ten years ago, and has never been in America since.  They lived in Spain a year or two, then went to France.  Both died some months ago.  This little girl that is coming is the only child.  General Alison is glad to have her.  He has never seen her.  He is a very nice old bachelor, but is an old bachelor just the same and isn’t more than about a year this side of retirement by age limit; and so what does he know about taking care of a little maid nine years old?  If I could have her it would be another matter, for I know all about children, and they adore me.  Buffalo Bill will tell you so himself. I have some of this news from over-hearing the garrison-gossip, the rest of it I got from Potter, the General’s dog.  Potter is the great Dane.  He is privileged, all over the post, like Shekels, the Seventh Cavalry’s dog, and visits everybody’s quarters and picks up everything that is going, in the way of news.  Potter has no imagination, and no great deal of culture, perhaps, but he has a historical mind and a good memory, and so he is the person I depend upon mainly to post me up when I get back from a scout.  That is, if Shekels is out on depredation and I can’t get hold of him. <h3>CHAPTER II—LETTER FROM ROUEN—TO GENERAL ALISON</h3> My dear Brother-in-Law,—Please let me write again in Spanish, I cannot trust my English, and I am aware, from what your brother used to say, that army officers educated at the Military Academy of the United States are taught our tongue.  It is as I told you in my other letter: both my poor sister and her husband, when they found they could not recover, expressed the wish that you should have their little Catherine—as knowing that you would presently be retired from the army—rather than that she should remain with me, who am broken in health, or go to your mother in California, whose health is also frail. You do not know the child, therefore I must tell you something about her.  You will not be ashamed of her looks, for she is a copy in little of her beautiful mother—and it is that Andalusian beauty which is not surpassable, even in your country.  She has her mother’s charm and grace and good heart and sense of justice, and she has her father’s vivacity and cheerfulness and pluck and spirit of enterprise, with the affectionate disposition and sincerity of both parents. My sister pined for her Spanish home all these years of exile; she was always talking of Spain to the child, and tending and nourishing the love of Spain in the little thing’s heart as a precious flower; and she died happy in the knowledge that the fruitage of her patriotic labors was as rich as even she could desire. Cathy is a sufficiently good little scholar, for her nine years; her mother taught her Spanish herself, and kept it always fresh upon her ear and her tongue by hardly ever speaking with her in any other tongue; her father was her English teacher, and talked with her in that language almost exclusively; French has been her everyday speech for more than seven years among her playmates here; she has a good working use of governess—German and Italian.  It is true that there is always a faint foreign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is talking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a charm than a mar, I think.  In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is neither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say.  But I can say this for her: in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and good-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors.  And I beg of you, let her have her way with the dumb animals—they are her worship.  It is an inheritance from her mother.  She knows but little of cruelties and oppressions—keep them from her sight if you can.  She would flare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided and resolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither promptness nor initiative.  Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I think her intentions are always right.  Once when she was a little creature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down upon the floor in an apparent outbreak of indignation, then fetched it a backward wipe, and stooped down to examine the result.  Her mother said: “Why, what is it, child?  What has stirred you so?” “Mamma, the big ant was trying to kill the little one.” “And so you protected the little one.” “Yes, manure, because he had no friend, and I wouldn’t let the big one kill him.” “But you have killed them both.” Cathy was distressed, and her lip trembled.  She picked up the remains and laid them upon her palm, and said: “Poor little anty, I’m so sorry; and I didn’t mean to kill you, but there wasn’t any other way to save you, it was such a hurry.” She is a dear and sweet little lady, and when she goes it will give me a sore heart.  But she will be happy with you, and if your heart is old and tired, give it into her keeping; she will make it young again, she will refresh it, she will make it sing.  Be good to her, for all our sakes! My exile will soon be over now.  As soon as I am a little stronger I shall see my Spain again; and that will make me young again! MERCEDES. <h3>CHAPTER III—GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER</h3> I am glad to know that you are all well, in San Bernardino. . . . That grandchild of yours has been here—well, I do not quite know how many days it is; nobody can keep account of days or anything else where she is!  Mother, she did what the Indians were never able to do.  She took the Fort—took it the first day!  Took me, too; took the colonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes; took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison—to the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all.  Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity?  You would lose your own, in my circumstances.  Mother, you never saw such a winning little devil.  She is all energy, and spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and pours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take it, high or low, Christian or pagan, feathered or furred; and none has declined it to date, and none ever will, I think.  But she has a temper, and sometimes it catches fire and flames up, and is likely to burn whatever is near it; but it is soon over, the passion goes as quickly as it comes.  Of course she has an Indian name already; Indians always rechristen a stranger early.  Thunder-Bird attended to her case.  He gave her the Indian equivalent for firebug, or fire-fly.  He said: “’Times, ver’ quiet, ver’ soft, like summer night, but when she mad she blaze.” Isn’t it good?  Can’t you see the flare?  She’s beautiful, mother, beautiful as a picture; and there is a touch of you in her face, and of her father—poor George! and in her unresting activities, and her fearless ways, and her sunbursts and cloudbursts, she is always bringing George back to me.  These impulsive natures are dramatic.  George was dramatic, so is this Lightning-Bug, so is Buffalo Bill.  When Cathy first arrived—it was in the forenoon—Buffalo Bill was away, carrying orders to Major Fuller, at Five Forks, up in the Clayton Hills.  At mid-afternoon I was at my desk, trying to work, and this sprite had been making it impossible for half an hour.  At last I said: “Oh, you bewitching little scamp, can’t you be quiet just a minute or two, and let your poor old uncle attend to a part of his duties?” “I’ll try, uncle; I will, indeed,” she said. “Well, then, that’s a good child—kiss me.  Now, then, sit up in that chair, and set your eye on that clock.  There—that’s right.  If you stir—if you so much as wink—for four whole minutes, I’ll bite you!” It was very sweet and humble and obedient she looked, sitting there, still as a mouse; I could hardly keep from setting her free and telling her to make as much racket as she wanted to.  During as much as two minutes there was a most unnatural and heavenly quiet and repose, then Buffalo Bill came thundering up to the door in all his scout finery, flung himself out of the saddle, said to his horse, “Wait for me, Boy,” and stepped in, and stopped dead in his tracks—gazing at the child.  She forgot orders, and was on the floor in a moment, saying: “Oh, you are so beautiful!  Do you like me?” “No, I don’t, I love you!” and he gathered her up with a hug, and then set her on his shoulder—apparently nine feet from the floor. She was at home.  She played with his long hair, and admired his big hands and his clothes and his carbine, and asked question after question, as fast as he could answer, until I excused them both for half an hour, in order to have a chance to finish my work.  Then I heard Cathy exclaiming over Soldier Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he is a wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is as shining as his own silken hide. <h3>CHAPTER IV—CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES</h3> Oh, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise!  Oh, if you could only see it! everything so wild and lovely; such grand plains, stretching such miles and miles and miles, all the most delicious velvety sand and sage-brush, and rabbits as big as a dog, and such tall and noble jackassful ears that that is what they name them by; and such vast mountains, and so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls wrapped around their shoulders, and looking so solemn and awful and satisfied; and the charming Indians, oh, how you would dote on them, aunty dear, and they would on you, too, and they would let you hold their babies, the way they do me, and they are the fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little things, and never cry, and wouldn’t if they had pins sticking in them, which they haven’t, because they are poor and can’t afford it; and the horses and mules and cattle and dogs—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and not an animal that you can’t do what you please with, except uncle Thomas, but I don’t mind him, he’s lovely; and oh, if you could hear the bugles: too—too—too-too—too—too, and so on—perfectly beautiful!  Do you recognize that one?  It’s the first toots of the reveille; it goes, dear me, so early in the morning!—then I and every other soldier on the whole place are up and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most unaccountably lazy, I don’t know why, but I have talked to him about it, and I reckon it will be better, now.  He hasn’t any faults much, and is charming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and Mammy Dorcas, and Soldier Boy, and Shekels, and Potter, and Sour-Mash, and—well, they’re all that, just angels, as you may say. The very first day I came, I don’t know how long ago it was, Buffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird’s camp, not the big one which is out on the plain, which is White Cloud’s, he took me to that one next day, but this one is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where there is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges and dogs and squaws and everything that is interesting, and a brook of the clearest water running through it, with white pebbles on the bottom and trees all along the banks cool and shady and good to wade in, and as the sun goes down it is dimmish in there, but away up against the sky you see the big peaks towering up and shining bright and vivid in the sun, and sometimes an eagle sailing by them, not flapping a wing, the same as if he was asleep; and young Indians and girls romping and laughing and carrying on, around the spring and the pool, and not much clothes on except the girls, and dogs fighting, and the squaws busy at work, and the bucks busy resting, and the old men sitting in a bunch smoking, and passing the pipe not to the left but to the right, which means there’s been a row in the camp and they are settling it if they can, and children playing just the same as any other children, and little boys shooting at a mark with bows, and I cuffed one of them because he hit a dog with a club that wasn’t doing anything, and he resented it but before long he wished he hadn’t: but this sentence is getting too long and I will start another.  Thunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to let me see him, and he was splendid to look at, with his face painted red and bright and intense like a fire-coal and a valance of eagle feathers from the top of his head all down his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which has a stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had such a good time in an Indian camp in my life, and I learned a lot of words of the language, and next day BB took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I had another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and dogs; and the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a pretty little bow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and in four days I could shoot very well with it and beat any white boy of my size at the post; and I have been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have learned to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me and praises me, and every time I do better than ever he lets me have a scamper on Soldier Boy, and that’s the last agony of pleasure! for he is the charmingest horse, and so beautiful and shiny and black, and hasn’t another color on him anywhere, except a white star in his forehead, not just an imitation star, but a real one, with four points, shaped exactly like a star that’s hand-made, and if you should cover him all up but his star you would know him anywhere, even in Jerusalem or Australia, by that.  And I got acquainted with a good many of the Seventh Cavalry, and the dragoons, and officers, and families, and horses, in the first few days, and some more in the next few and the next few and the next few, and now I know more soldiers and horses than you can think, no matter how hard you try.  I am keeping up my studies every now and then, but there isn’t much time for it.  I love you so! and I send you a hug and a kiss. CATHY. P.S.—I belong to the Seventh Cavalry and Ninth Dragoons, I am an officer, too, and do not have to work on account of not getting any wages. <h3>CHAPTER V—GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES</h3> She has been with us a good nice long time, now.  You are troubled about your sprite because this is such a wild frontier, hundreds of miles from civilization, and peopled only by wandering tribes of savages?  You fear for her safety?  Give yourself no uneasiness about her.  Dear me, she’s in a nursery! and she’s got more than eighteen hundred nurses.  It would distress the garrison to suspect that you think they can’t take care of her.  They think they can.  They would tell you so themselves.  You see, the Seventh Cavalry has never had a child of its very own before, and neither has the Ninth Dragoons; and so they are like all new mothers, they think there is no other child like theirs, no other child so wonderful, none that is so worthy to be faithfully and tenderly looked after and protected.  These bronzed veterans of mine are very good mothers, I think, and wiser than some other mothers; for they let her take lots of risks, and it is a good education for her; and the more risks she takes and comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of her.  They adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of their own invention—solemnities is the truer word; solemnities that were so profoundly solemn and earnest, that the spectacle would have been comical if it hadn’t been so touching.  It was a good show, and as stately and complex as guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it had its own special music, composed for the occasion by the bandmaster of the Seventh; and the child was as serious as the most serious war-worn soldier of them all; and finally when they throned her upon the shoulder of the oldest veteran, and pronounced her “well and truly adopted,” and the bands struck up and all saluted and she saluted in return, it was better and more moving than any kindred thing I have seen on the stage, because stage things are make-believe, but this was real and the players’ hearts were in it. It happened several weeks ago, and was followed by some additional solemnities.  The men created a couple of new ranks, thitherto unknown to the army regulations, and conferred them upon Cathy, with ceremonies suitable to a duke.  So now she is Corporal-General of the Seventh Cavalry, and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, with the privilege (decreed by the men) of writing U.S.A. after her name!  Also, they presented her a pair of shoulder-straps—both dark blue, the one with F. L. on it, the other with C. G.  Also, a sword.  She wears them.  Finally, they granted her the salute.  I am witness that that ceremony is faithfully observed by both parties—and most gravely and decorously, too.  I have never seen a soldier smile yet, while delivering it, nor Cathy in returning it. Ostensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant of them; but I was where I could see.  I was afraid of one thing—the jealousy of the other children of the post; but there is nothing of that, I am glad to say.  On the contrary, they are proud of their comrade and her honors.  It is a surprising thing, but it is true.  The children are devoted to Cathy, for she has turned their dull frontier life into a sort of continuous festival; also they know her for a stanch and steady friend, a friend who can always be depended upon, and does not change with the weather. She has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutorship of a more than extraordinary teacher—BB, which is her pet name for Buffalo Bill.  She pronounces it beeby.  He has not only taught her seventeen ways of breaking her neck, but twenty-two ways of avoiding it.  He has infused into her the best and surest protection of a horseman—confidence.  He did it gradually, systematically, little by little, a step at a time, and each step made sure before the next was essayed.  And so he inched her along up through terrors that had been discounted by training before she reached them, and therefore were not recognizable as terrors when she got to them.  Well, she is a daring little rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship.  By-and-by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and will exercise it as fearlessly.  She doesn’t know anything about side-saddles.  Does that distress you?  And she is a fine performer, without any saddle at all.  Does that discomfort you?  Do not let it; she is not in any danger, I give you my word. You said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you said truly.  I do not know how I got along without her, before.  I was a forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself about me and become the life of my life, it is very different.  As a furnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly competent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes hers, for Dorcas “raised” George, and Cathy is George over again in so many ways that she brings back Dorcas’s youth and the joys of that long-vanished time.  My father tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still lived in Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member of the family, and wouldn’t go.  And so, a member of the family she remained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and holds it now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino when we learned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one division of the family to the other.  She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish affections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and child in five minutes, and that is what they are to date and will continue.  Dorcas really thinks she raised George, and that is one of her prides, but perhaps it was a mutual raising, for their ages were the same—thirteen years short of mine.  But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards that, there is no room for dispute. Cathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself.  She could not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas could not receive one that would please her better.  Dorcas is satisfied that there has never been a more wonderful child than Cathy.  She has conceived the curious idea that Cathy is twins, and that one of them is a boy-twin and failed to get segregated—got submerged, is the idea.  To argue with her that this is nonsense is a waste of breath—her mind is made up, and arguments do not affect it.  She says: “Look at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything a girl loves, and she’s gentle and sweet, and ain’t cruel to dumb brutes—now that’s the girl-twin, but she loves boy-plays, and drums and fifes and soldiering, and rough-riding, and ain’t afraid of anybody or anything—and that’s the boy-twin; ’deed you needn’t tell me she’s only one child; no, sir, she’s twins, and one of them got shet up out of sight.  Out of sight, but that don’t make any difference, that boy is in there, and you can see him look out of her eyes when her temper is up.” Then Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to furnish illustrations. “Look at that raven, Marse Tom.  Would anybody befriend a raven but that child?  Of course they wouldn’t; it ain’t natural.  Well, the Injun boy had the raven tied up, and was all the time plaguing it and starving it, and she pitied the po’ thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the tears was in her eyes.  That was the girl-twin, you see.  She offered him her thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the doughnuts she had, which was two, and he flung them down; she offered him half a paper of pins, worth forty ravens, and he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of them in the raven’s back.  That was the limit, you know.  It called for the other twin.  Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn’t anything but an allegory.  That was most undoubtedly the other twin, you see, coming to the front.  No, sir; don’t tell me he ain’t in there.  I’ve seen him with my own eyes—and plenty of times, at that.” “Allegory?  What is an allegory?” “I don’t know, Marse Tom, it’s one of her words; she loves the big ones, you know, and I pick them up from her; they sound good and I can’t help it.” “What happened after she had converted the boy into an allegory?” “Why, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force and fetched him home, and left the doughnuts and things on the ground.  Petted him, of course, like she does with every creature.  In two days she had him so stuck after her that she—well, you know how he follows her everywhere, and sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages—all of which is the girl-twin to the front, you see—and he does what he pleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance in the kitchen.  Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn’t if it was another person’s bird.” Here she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she said: “Well, you know, she’s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she is so busy, and into everything, like that bird.  It’s all just as innocent, you know, and she don’t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it ain’t her fault, it’s her nature; her interest is always a-working and always red-hot, and she can’t keep quiet.  Well, yesterday it was ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t do that’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t make so much noise’; and so on and so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen minutes; then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes that can plead so, and said in that odd little foreign way that goes to your heart, “’Please, mammy, make me a compliment.” “And of course you did it, you old fool?” “Marse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, ‘Oh, you po’ dear little motherless thing, you ain’t got a fault in the world, and you can do anything you want to, and tear the house down, and yo’ old black mammy won’t say a word!’” “Why, of course, of course—I knew you’d spoil the child.” She brushed away her tears, and said with dignity: “Spoil the child? spoil that child, Marse Tom?  There can’t anybody spoil her.  She’s the king bee of this post, and everybody pets her and is her slave, and yet, as you know, your own self, she ain’t the least little bit spoiled.”  Then she eased her mind with this retort: “Marse Tom, she makes you do anything she wants to, and you can’t deny it; so if she could be spoilt, she’d been spoilt long ago, because you are the very worst!  Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a candle-box, just as patient; it’s because they’re her cats.” If Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large frankness as that.  I changed the subject, and made her resume her illustrations.  She had scored against me fairly, and I wasn’t going to cheapen her victory by disputing it.  She proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her twin theory: “Two weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty pale with the pain, but she never said a word.  I took her in my lap, and the surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began to sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her scrunch a little, but she never let go a sound.  At last the surgeon was so full of admiration that he said, ‘Well, you are a brave little thing!’ and she said, just as ca’m and simple as if she was talking about the weather, ‘There isn’t anybody braver but the Cid!’  You see? it was the boy-twin that the surgeon was a-dealing with. “Who is the Cid?” “I don’t know, sir—at least only what she says.  She’s always talking about him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever had, or any other country.  They have it up and down, the children do, she standing up for the Cid, and they working George Washington for all he is worth.” “Do they quarrel?” “No; it’s only disputing, and bragging, the way children do.  They want her to be an American, but she can’t be anything but a Spaniard, she says.  You see, her mother was always longing for home, po’ thing! and thinking about it, and so the child is just as much a Spaniard as if she’d always lived there.  She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but I reckon she don’t, because she was only a baby when they moved to France.  She is very proud to be a Spaniard.” Does that please you, Mercedes?  Very well, be content; your niece is loyal to her allegiance: her mother laid deep the foundations of her love for Spain, and she will go back to you as good a Spaniard as you are yourself.  She has made me promise to take her to you for a long visit when the War Office retires me. I attend to her studies myself; has she told you that?  Yes, I am her school-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything considered.  Everything considered—being translated—means holidays.  But the fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard.  Hard for me, too; it hurts me like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the air and the sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes when I find her gazing far away towards the plain and the blue mountains with the longing in her eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I can’t help it.  A quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of blunders.  Once I put the question: “What does the Czar govern?” She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that problem under deep consideration.  Presently she looked up and answered, with a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty, “The dative case?” Here are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with tranquil confidence: “Chaplain, diminutive of chap.  Lass is masculine, lassie is feminine.” She is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all make mistakes of that sort.  There is a glad light in her eye which is pretty to see when she finds herself able to answer a question promptly and accurately, without any hesitation; as, for instance, this morning: “Cathy dear, what is a cube?” “Why, a native of Cuba.” She still drops a foreign word into her talk now and then, and there is still a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about even her exactest English—and long may this abide! for it has for me a charm that is very pleasant.  Sometimes her English is daintily prim and bookish and captivating.  She has a child’s sweet tooth, but for her health’s sake I try to keep its inspirations under cheek.  She is obedient—as is proper for a titled and recognized military personage, which she is—but the chain presses sometimes.  For instance, we were out for a walk, and passed by some bushes that were freighted with wild goose-berries.  Her face brightened and she put her hands together and delivered herself of this speech, most feelingly: “Oh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the gourmandise!” Could I resist that?  No.  I gave her a gooseberry. You ask about her languages.  They take care of themselves; they will not get rusty here; our regiments are not made up of natives alone—far from it.  And she is picking up Indian tongues diligently. <h3>CHAPTER VI—SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG</h3> “When did you come?” “Arrived at sundown.” “Where from?” “Salt Lake.” “Are you in the service?” “No.  Trade.” “Pirate trade, I reckon.” “What do you know about it?” “I saw you when you came.  I recognized your master.  He is a bad sort.  Trap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado—Hank Butters—I know him very well.  Stole you, didn’t he?” “Well, it amounted to that.” “I thought so.  Where is his pard?” “He stopped at White Cloud’s camp.” “He is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins.”  (Aside.)  They are laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess.  (Aloud.)  “What is your name?” “Which one?” “Have you got more than one?” “I get a new one every time I’m stolen.  I used to have an honest name, but that was early; I’ve forgotten it.  Since then I’ve had thirteen aliases.” “Aliases?  What is alias?” “A false name.” “Alias.  It’s a fine large word, and is in my line; it has quite a learned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound.  Are you educated?” “Well, no, I can’t claim it.  I can take down bars, I can distinguish oats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred, and I know a few other things—not many; I have had no chance, I have always had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family.  You speak my dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a gentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course.” “Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate.  I am a fossil.” “A which?” “Fossil.  The first horses were fossils.  They date back two million years.” “Gr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?” “Yes, it is true.  The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and worship, even by men.  They do not leave them exposed to the weather when they find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in their temples of learning, and worship them.” “It is wonderful!  I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your fine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not subjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest.  Would you tell me your name?” “You have probably heard of it—Soldier Boy.” “What!—the renowned, the illustrious?” “Even so.” “It takes my breath!  Little did I dream that ever I should stand face to face with the possessor of that great name.  Buffalo Bill’s horse!  Known from the Canadian border to the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern marches of the Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra!  Truly this is a memorable day.  You still serve the celebrated Chief of Scouts?” “I am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to the most noble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her Excellency Catherine, Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,—on whom be peace!” “Amen.  Did you say her Excellency?” “The same.  A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house.  And truly a wonder; knowing everything, capable of everything; speaking all the languages, master of all sciences, a mind without horizons, a heart of gold, the glory of her race!  On whom be peace!” “Amen.  It is marvellous!” “Verily.  I knew many things, she has taught me others.  I am educated.  I will tell you about her.” “I listen—I am enchanted.” “I will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, without eloquence.  When she had been here four or five weeks she was already erudite in military things, and they made her an officer—a double officer.  She rode the drill every day, like any soldier; and she could take the bugle and direct the evolutions herself.  Then, on a day, there was a grand race, for prizes—none to enter but the children.  Seventeen children entered, and she was the youngest.  Three girls, fourteen boys—good riders all.  It was a steeplechase, with four hurdles, all pretty high.  The first prize was a most cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty pretty, with red silk cord and tassels.  Buffalo Bill was very anxious; for he had taught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to win that race, for the glory of it.  So he wanted her to ride me, but she wouldn’t; and she reproached him, and said it was unfair and unright, and taking advantage; for what horse in this post or any other could stand a chance against me? and she was very severe with him, and said, ‘You ought to be ashamed—you are proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’  So he just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and caught her as she came down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and pretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him, and begged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything in the world he could ask but that; but he said he ought to go hang himself, and he must, if he could get a rope; it was nothing but right he should, for he never, never could forgive himself; and then she began to cry, and they both sobbed, the way you could hear him a mile, and she clinging around his neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a little, and gave his solemn promise he wouldn’t hang himself till after the race; and wouldn’t do it at all if she won it, which made her happy, and she said she would win it or die in the saddle; so then everything was pleasant again and both of them content.  He can’t help playing jokes on her, he is so fond of her and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and when she finds it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently forgives him because it’s him; and maybe the very next day she’s caught with another joke; you see she can’t learn any better, because she hasn’t any deceit in her, and that kind aren’t ever expecting it in another person. “It was a grand race.  The whole post was there, and there was such another whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying down the turf and sailing over the hurdles—oh, beautiful to see!  Half-way down, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody’s race and nobody’s.  Then, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to munch grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming like the wind; they split apart to flank her, but she?—why, she drove the spurs home and soared over that cow like a bird! and on she went, and cleared the last hurdle solitary and alone, the army letting loose the grand yell, and she skipped from the horse the same as if he had been standing still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to congratulate, and they gave her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and blew ‘boots and saddles’ to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as you can’t think!  And he said, ‘Take Soldier Boy, and don’t pass him back till I ask for him!’ and I can tell you he wouldn’t have said that to any other person on this planet.  That was two months and more ago, and nobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,—on whom be peace!” “Amen.  I listen—tell me more.” “She set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First Battalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be bugler, but they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler.  So she ranks her uncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier.  And doesn’t she train those little people!  Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers; they’ll tell you.  She has been at it from the first day.  Every morning they go clattering down into the plain, and there she sits on my back with her bugle at her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through the evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything to see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz about, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by, sometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and sometimes she can’t hold herself any longer, but sounds the ‘charge,’ and turns me loose! and you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn’t too much of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the front line. “Yes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy, too, not ailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes.  It’s because of her drill.  She’s got a fort, now—Fort Fanny Marsh.  Major-General Tommy Drake planned it out, and the Seventh and Dragoons built it.  Tommy is the Colonel’s son, and is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny Marsh is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest—over thirteen.  She is daughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry.  Lieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable; I think she is about nine and a half or three-quarters.  Her military rig, as Lieutenant-General, isn’t for business, it’s for dress parade, because the ladies made it.  They say they got it out of the Middle Ages—out of a book—and it is all red and blue and white silks and satins and velvets; tights, trunks, sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape, cap with just one feather in it; I’ve heard them name these things; they got them out of the book; she’s dressed like a page, of old times, they say.  It’s the daintiest outfit that ever was—you will say so, when you see it.  She’s lovely in it—oh, just a dream!  In some ways she is just her age, but in others she’s as old as her uncle, I think.  She is very learned.  She teaches her uncle his book.  I have seen her sitting by with the book and reciting to him what is in it, so that he can learn to do it himself. “Every Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort; then she lays siege to it, and makes military approaches by make-believe trenches in make-believe night, and finally at make-believe dawn she draws her sword and sounds the assault and takes it by storm.  It is for practice.  And she has invented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head, and it’s a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service.  It’s to call me—it’s never used for anything else.  She taught it to me, and told me what it says: ‘It is I, Soldier—come!’ and when those thrilling notes come floating down the distance I hear them without fail, even if I am two miles away; and then—oh, then you should see my heels get down to business! “And she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-night to her, which is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say good-bye; I do that with my left foot—but only for practice, because there hasn’t been any but make-believe good-byeing yet, and I hope there won’t ever be.  It would make me cry if I ever had to put up my left foot in earnest.  She has taught me how to salute, and I can do it as well as a soldier.  I bow my head low, and lay my right hoof against my cheek.  She taught me that because I got into disgrace once, through ignorance.  I am privileged, because I am known to be honorable and trustworthy, and because I have a distinguished record in the service; so they don’t hobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in stables, but let me wander around to suit myself.  Well, trooping the colors is a very solemn ceremony, and everybody must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the commandant and all; and once I was there, and ignorantly walked across right in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace: Ah, the Lieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distressed that I should have done such a thing before all the world, that she couldn’t keep the tears back; and then she taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other unmilitary act through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed everybody would think it was apology enough and would not press the matter.  It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it; often the men salute me, and I return it.  I am privileged to be present when the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like the children, and I salute when the flag goes by.  Of course when she goes to her fort her sentries sing out ‘Turn out the guard!’ and then . . . do you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the mountain-pines and the wild flowers?  The night is far spent; we’ll hear the bugles before long.  Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice; she takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General Alison’s mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General.  That is what Shekels says.  At least it is what I think he says, though I never can understand him quite clearly. He—” “Who is Shekels?” “The Seventh Cavalry dog.  I mean, if he is a dog.  His father was a coyote and his mother was a wild-cat.  It doesn’t really make a dog out of him, does it?” “Not a real dog, I should think.  Only a kind of a general dog, at most, I reckon.  Though this is a matter of ichthyology, I suppose; and if it is, it is out of my depth, and so my opinion is not valuable, and I don’t claim much consideration for it.” “It isn’t ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more difficult and tangled up.  Dogmatics always are.” “Dogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing.  But on general principles it is my opinion that a colt out of a coyote and a wild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful.  That is my hand, and I stand pat.” “Well, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and conscientious.  I have always regarded him as a doubtful dog, and so has Potter.  Potter is the great Dane.  Potter says he is no dog, and not even poultry—though I do not go quite so far as that. “And I wouldn’t, myself.  Poultry is one of those things which no person can get to the bottom of, there is so much of it and such variety.  It is just wings, and wings, and wings, till you are weary: turkeys, and geese, and bats, and butterflies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and flying-fish, and—well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me the heaves just to think of it.  But this one hasn’t any wings, has he?” “No.” “Well, then, in my belief he is more likely to be dog than poultry.  I have not heard of poultry that hadn’t wings.  Wings is the sign of poultry; it is what you tell poultry by.  Look at the mosquito.” “What do you reckon he is, then?  He must be something.” “Why, he could be a reptile; anything that hasn’t wings is a reptile.” “Who told you that?” “Nobody told me, but I overheard it.” “Where did you overhear it?” “Years ago.  I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad Lands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him say, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hadn’t wings and was uncertain was a reptile.  Well, then, has this dog any wings?  No.  Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium?  Maybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only by his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale of hay to a bran mash that he looks it.  Finally, is he uncertain?  That is the point—is he uncertain?  I will leave it to you if you have ever heard of a more uncertainer dog than what this one is?” “No, I never have.” “Well, then, he’s a reptile.  That’s settled.” “Why, look here, whatsyourname” “Last alias, Mongrel.” “A good one, too.  I was going to say, you are better educated than you have been pretending to be.  I like cultured society, and I shall cultivate your acquaintance.  Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to know about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White Cloud’s camp or Thunder-Bird’s, he can tell you; and if you make friends with him he’ll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the tittle-tattle.  Being the whole Seventh Cavalry’s reptile, he doesn’t belong to anybody in particular, and hasn’t any military duties; so he comes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and other authentic sources of private information.  He understands all the languages, and talks them all, too.  With an accent like gritting your teeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement on blasphemy—still, with practice you get at the meat of what he says, and it serves. . . Hark!  That’s the reveille. . . . [THE REVEILLE] “Faint and far, but isn’t it clear, isn’t it sweet?  There’s no music like the bugle to stir the blood, in the still solemnity of the morning twilight, with the dim plain stretching away to nothing and the spectral mountains slumbering against the sky.  You’ll hear another note in a minute—faint and far and clear, like the other one, and sweeter still, you’ll notice.  Wait . . . listen.  There it goes!  It says, ‘It is I, Soldier—come!’ . . . [SOLDIER BOY’S BUGLE CALL] . . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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