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<h3>CHAPTER VII—SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS</h3> “Did you do as I told you?  Did you look up the Mexican Plug?” “Yes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship.” “I liked him.  Did you?” “Not at first.  He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me, because I didn’t know whether it was a compliment or not.  I couldn’t ask him, because it would look ignorant.  So I didn’t say anything, and soon liked him very well indeed.  Was it a compliment, do you think?” “Yes, that is what it was.  They are very rare, the reptiles; very few left, now-a-days.” “Is that so?  What is a reptile?” “It is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn’t any wings and is uncertain.” “Well, it—it sounds fine, it surely does.” “And it is fine.  You may be thankful you are one.” “I am.  It seems wonderfully grand and elegant for a person that is so humble as I am; but I am thankful, I am indeed, and will try to live up to it.  It is hard to remember.  Will you say it again, please, and say it slow?” “Plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn’t any wings and is uncertain.” “It is beautiful, anybody must grant it; beautiful, and of a noble sound.  I hope it will not make me proud and stuck-up—I should not like to be that.  It is much more distinguished and honorable to be a reptile than a dog, don’t you think, Soldier?” “Why, there’s no comparison.  It is awfully aristocratic.  Often a duke is called a reptile; it is set down so, in history.” “Isn’t that grand!  Potter wouldn’t ever associate with me, but I reckon he’ll be glad to when he finds out what I am.” “You can depend upon it.” “I will thank Mongrel for this. He is a very good sort, for a Mexican Plug.  Don’t you think he is?” “It is my opinion of him; and as for his birth, he cannot help that.  We cannot all be reptiles, we cannot all be fossils; we have to take what comes and be thankful it is no worse.  It is the true philosophy.” “For those others?” “Stick to the subject, please.  Did it turn out that my suspicions were right?” “Yes, perfectly right.  Mongrel has heard them planning.  They are after BB’s life, for running them out of Medicine Bow and taking their stolen horses away from them.” “Well, they’ll get him yet, for sure.” “Not if he keeps a sharp look-out.” “He keep a sharp lookout!  He never does; he despises them, and all their kind.  His life is always being threatened, and so it has come to be monotonous.” “Does he know they are here?” “Oh yes, he knows it.  He is always the earliest to know who comes and who goes.  But he cares nothing for them and their threats; he only laughs when people warn him.  They’ll shoot him from behind a tree the first he knows.  Did Mongrel tell you their plans?” “Yes.  They have found out that he starts for Fort Clayton day after to-morrow, with one of his scouts; so they will leave to-morrow, letting on to go south, but they will fetch around north all in good time.” “Shekels, I don’t like the look of it.” <h3>CHAPTER VIII—THE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON</h3> BB (saluting).  “Good! handsomely done!  The Seventh couldn’t beat it!  You do certainly handle your Rangers like an expert, General.  And where are you bound?” “Four miles on the trail to Fort Clayton.” “Glad am I, dear!  What’s the idea of it?” “Guard of honor for you and Thorndike.” “Bless—your—heart!  I’d rather have it from you than from the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable little soldier!—and I don’t need to take any oath to that, for you to believe it.” “I thought you’d like it, BB.” “Like it?  Well, I should say so!  Now then—all ready—sound the advance, and away we go!” <h3>CHAPTER IX—SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN</h3> “Well, this is the way it happened.  We did the escort duty; then we came back and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a rousing drill—oh, for hours!  Then we sent them home under Brigadier-General Fanny Marsh; then the Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over the plains for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the middle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the drummer-boy, and he saluted and asked the Lieutenant-General if she had heard the news, and she said no, and he said: “‘Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this side of Clayton, and Thorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn’t travel, but Thorndike could, and he brought the news, and Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are gone, two hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill.  And they say—’ “‘Go!’ she shouts to me—and I went.” “Fast?” “Don’t ask foolish questions.  It was an awful pace.  For four hours nothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said, ‘Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we’ll save him!’  I kept it up.  Well, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap had been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack knee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully afraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I could stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over she went! “Ah, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn’t stir, and what was I to do?  I couldn’t leave her to fetch help, on account of the wolves.  There was nothing to do but stand by.  It was dreadful.  I was afraid she was killed, poor little thing!  But she wasn’t.  She came to, by-and-by, and said, ‘Kiss me, Soldier,’ and those were blessed words.  I kissed her—often; I am used to that, and we like it.  But she didn’t get up, and I was worried.  She fondled my nose with her hand, and talked to me, and called me endearing names—which is her way—but she caressed with the same hand all the time.  The other arm was broken, you see, but I didn’t know it, and she didn’t mention it.  She didn’t want to distress me, you know. “Soon the big gray wolves came, and hung around, and you could hear them snarl, and snap at each other, but you couldn’t see anything of them except their eyes, which shone in the dark like sparks and stars.  The Lieutenant-General said, ‘If I had the Rocky Mountain Rangers here, we would make those creatures climb a tree.’  Then she made believe that the Rangers were in hearing, and put up her bugle and blew the ‘assembly’; and then, ‘boots and saddles’; then the ‘trot’; ‘gallop’; ‘charge!’  Then she blew the ‘retreat,’ and said, ‘That’s for you, you rebels; the Rangers don’t ever retreat!’ “The music frightened them away, but they were hungry, and kept coming back.  And of course they got bolder and bolder, which is their way.  It went on for an hour, then the tired child went to sleep, and it was pitiful to hear her moan and nestle, and I couldn’t do anything for her.  All the time I was laying for the wolves.  They are in my line; I have had experience.  At last the boldest one ventured within my lines, and I landed him among his friends with some of his skull still on him, and they did the rest.  In the next hour I got a couple more, and they went the way of the first one, down the throats of the detachment.  That satisfied the survivors, and they went away and left us in peace. “We hadn’t any more adventures, though I kept awake all night and was ready.  From midnight on the child got very restless, and out of her head, and moaned, and said, ‘Water, water—thirsty’; and now and then, ‘Kiss me, Soldier’; and sometimes she was in her fort and giving orders to her garrison; and once she was in Spain, and thought her mother was with her.  People say a horse can’t cry; but they don’t know, because we cry inside. “It was an hour after sunup that I heard the boys coming, and recognized the hoof-beats of Pomp and Caesar and Jerry, old mates of mine; and a welcomer sound there couldn’t ever be. Buffalo Bill was in a horse-litter, with his leg broken by a bullet, and Mongrel and Blake Haskins’s horse were doing the work.  Buffalo Bill and Thorndike had lolled both of those toughs. “When they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying there so white, he said, ‘My God!’ and the sound of his voice brought her to herself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure and struggled to get up, but couldn’t, and the soldiers gathered her up like the tenderest women, and their eyes were wet and they were not ashamed, when they saw her arm dangling; and so were Buffalo Bill’s, and when they laid her in his arms he said, ‘My darling, how does this come?’ and she said, ‘We came to save you, but I was tired, and couldn’t keep awake, and fell off and hurt myself, and couldn’t get on again.’  ‘You came to save me, you dear little rat?  It was too lovely of you!’  ‘Yes, and Soldier stood by me, which you know he would, and protected me from the wolves; and if he got a chance he kicked the life out of some of them—for you know he would, BB.’  The sergeant said, ‘He laid out three of them, sir, and here’s the bones to show for it.’  ‘He’s a grand horse,’ said BB; ‘he’s the grandest horse that ever was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison, and shall protect it the rest of his life—he’s yours for a kiss!’  He got it, along with a passion of delight, and he said, ‘You are feeling better now, little Spaniard—do you think you could blow the advance?’  She put up the bugle to do it, but he said wait a minute first.  Then he and the sergeant set her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not whimpering; then we took up the march for home, and that’s the end of the tale; and I’m her horse.  Isn’t she a brick, Shekels? “Brick?  She’s more than a brick, more than a thousand bricks—she’s a reptile!” “It’s a compliment out of your heart, Shekels.  God bless you for it!” <h3>CHAPTER X—GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS</h3> “Too much company for her, Marse Tom.  Betwixt you, and Shekels, the Colonel’s wife, and the Cid—” “The Cid?  Oh, I remember—the raven.”  “—and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the baby coyotes, and Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus and her kittens—hang these names she gives the creatures, they warp my jaw—and Potter: you—all sitting around in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire time, it’s a wonder to me she comes along as well as she does.  She—” “You want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!” “Marse Tom, you know better.  It’s too much company.  And then the idea of her receiving reports all the time from her officers, and acting upon them, and giving orders, the same as if she was well!  It ain’t good for her, and the surgeon don’t like it, and tried to persuade her not to and couldn’t; and when he ordered her, she was that outraged and indignant, and was very severe on him, and accused him of insubordination, and said it didn’t become him to give orders to an officer of her rank.  Well, he saw he had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put together, so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.  Doctors don’t know much, and that’s a fact.  She’s too much interested in things—she ought to rest more.  She’s all the time sending messages to BB, and to soldiers and Injuns and whatnot, and to the animals.” “To the animals?” “Yes, sir.” “Who carries them?” “Sometimes Potter, but mostly it’s Shekels.” “Now come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe as that?” “But it ain’t make-believe, Marse Tom.  She does send them.” “Yes, I don’t doubt that part of it.” “Do you doubt they get them, sir?” “Certainly.  Don’t you?” “No, sir.  Animals talk to one another.  I know it perfectly well, Marse Tom, and I ain’t saying it by guess.” “What a curious superstition!” “It ain’t a superstition, Marse Tom.  Look at that Shekels—look at him, now.  Is he listening, or ain’t he?  Now you see! he’s turned his head away.  It’s because he was caught—caught in the act.  I’ll ask you—could a Christian look any more ashamed than what he looks now?—lay down!  You see? he was going to sneak out.  Don’t tell me, Marse Tom!  If animals don’t talk, I miss my guess.  And Shekels is the worst.  He goes and tells the animals everything that happens in the officers’ quarters; and if he’s short of facts, he invents them.  He hasn’t any more principle than a blue jay; and as for morals, he’s empty.  Look at him now; look at him grovel.  He knows what I am saying, and he knows it’s the truth.  You see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it’s the only virtue he’s got.  It’s wonderful how they find out everything that’s going on—the animals.  They—” “Do you really believe they do, Dorcas?” “I don’t only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it.  Day before yesterday they knew something was going to happen.  They were that excited, and whispering around together; why, anybody could see that they— But my! I must get back to her, and I haven’t got to my errand yet.” “What is it, Dorcas?” “Well, it’s two or three things.  One is, the doctor don’t salute when he comes . . . Now, Marse Tom, it ain’t anything to laugh at, and so—” “Well, then, forgive me; I didn’t mean to laugh—I got caught unprepared.” “You see, she don’t want to hurt the doctor’s feelings, so she don’t say anything to him about it; but she is always polite, herself, and it hurts that kind for people to be rude to them.” “I’ll have that doctor hanged.” “Marse Tom, she don’t want him hanged.  She—” “Well, then, I’ll have him boiled in oil.” “But she don’t want him boiled.  I—” “Oh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I’ll have him skinned.” “Why, she don’t want him skinned; it would break her heart.  Now—” “Woman, this is perfectly unreasonable.  What in the nation does she want?” “Marse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not fly off the handle at the least little thing.  Why, she only wants you to speak to him.” “Speak to him!  Well, upon my word!  All this unseemly rage and row about such a—a— Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before.  You have alarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there’s a mutiny, a revolt, an insurrection; he—” “Marse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly well; I don’t know what makes you act like that—but you always did, even when you was little, and you can’t get over it, I reckon.  Are you over it now, Marse Tom?” “Oh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the best he could, offering every kindness he could think of, only to have it rejected with contumely and . . . Oh, well, let it go; it’s no matter—I’ll talk to the doctor.  Is that satisfactory, or are you going to break out again?” “Yes, sir, it is; and it’s only right to talk to him, too, because it’s just as she says; she’s trying to keep up discipline in the Rangers, and this insubordination of his is a bad example for them—now ain’t it so, Marse Tom?” “Well, there is reason in it, I can’t deny it; so I will speak to him, though at bottom I think hanging would be more lasting.  What is the rest of your errand, Dorcas?” “Of course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse Tom, while she’s sick.  Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the dragoons that are off duty come and get her sentries to let them relieve them and serve in their place.  It’s only out of affection, sir, and because they know military honors please her, and please the children too, for her sake; and they don’t bring their muskets; and so—” “I’ve noticed them there, but didn’t twig the idea.  They are standing guard, are they?” “Yes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt their feelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if—if you don’t mind coming in the back way—” “Bear me up, Dorcas; don’t let me faint.” “There—sit up and behave, Marse Tom.  You are not going to faint; you are only pretending—you used to act just so when you was little; it does seem a long time for you to get grown up.” “Dorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of my job before long—she’ll have the whole post in her hands.  I must make a stand, I must not go down without a struggle.  These encroachments. . . . Dorcas, what do you think she will think of next?” “Marse Tom, she don’t mean any harm.” “Are you sure of it?” “Yes, Marse Tom.” “You feel sure she has no ulterior designs?” “I don’t know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she hasn’t.” “Very well, then, for the present I am satisfied.  What else have you come about?” “I reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse Tom, then tell you what she wants.  There’s been an emeute, as she calls it.  It was before she got back with BB.  The officer of the day reported it to her this morning.  It happened at her fort.  There was a fuss betwixt Major-General Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel Agnes Frisbie, and he snatched her doll away, which is made of white kid stuffed with sawdust, and tore every rag of its clothes off, right before them all, and is under arrest, and the charge is conduct un—” “Yes, I know—conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman—a plain case, too, it seems to me.  This is a serious matter.  Well, what is her pleasure?” “Well, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but the doctor don’t think she is well enough to preside over it, and she says there ain’t anybody competent but her, because there’s a major-general concerned; and so she—she—well, she says, would you preside over it for her? . . . Marse Tom, sit up!  You ain’t any more going to faint than Shekels is.” “Look here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful.  Be persuasive; don’t fret her; tell her it’s all right, the matter is in my hands, but it isn’t good form to hurry so grave a matter as this.  Explain to her that we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new.  In fact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened in our army, therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and must go cautiously and examine them carefully.  Tell her not to be impatient, it will take me several days, but it will all come out right, and I will come over and report progress as I go along.  Do you get the idea, Dorcas?” “I don’t know as I do, sir.” “Well, it’s this.  You see, it won’t ever do for me, a brigadier in the regular army, to preside over that infant court-martial—there isn’t any precedent for it, don’t you see.  Very well.  I will go on examining authorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out of this scrape by presiding herself.  Do you get it now?” “Oh, yes, sir, I get it, and it’s good, I’ll go and fix it with her.  Lay down! and stay where you are.” “Why, what harm is he doing?” “Oh, it ain’t any harm, but it just vexes me to see him act so.” “What was he doing?” “Can’t you see, and him in such a sweat?  He was starting out to spread it all over the post.  Now I reckon you won’t deny, any more, that they go and tell everything they hear, now that you’ve seen it with yo’ own eyes.” “Well, I don’t like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don’t see how I can consistently stick to my doubts in the face of such overwhelming proof as this dog is furnishing.” “There, now, you’ve got in yo’ right mind at last!  I wonder you can be so stubborn, Marse Tom.  But you always was, even when you was little.  I’m going now.” “Look here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment that she ought to enlarge the accused on his parole.” “Yes, sir, I’ll tell her.  Marse Tom?” “Well?” “She can’t get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the time, down in the mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake hands with him and comfort him?  Everybody does.” “It’s a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will.” <h3>CHAPTER XI—SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE</h3> “Thorndike, isn’t that Plug you’re riding an assert of the scrap you and Buffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins and his pal a few months back?” “Yes, this is Mongrel—and not a half-bad horse, either.” “I’ve noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate.  Say—isn’t it a gaudy morning?” “Right you are!” “Thorndike, it’s Andalusian! and when that’s said, all’s said.” “Andalusian and Oregonian, Antonio!  Put it that way, and you have my vote.  Being a native up there, I know.  You being Andalusian-born—” “Can speak with authority for that patch of paradise?  Well, I can.  Like the Don! like Sancho!  This is the correct Andalusian dawn now—crisp, fresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent—” “‘What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle—’ —git up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we’ve just been praising you! out on a scout and can’t live up to the honor any better than that?  Antonio, how long have you been out here in the Plains and the Rockies?” “More than thirteen years.” “It’s a long time.  Don’t you ever get homesick?” “Not till now.” “Why now?—after such a long cure.” “These preparations of the retiring commandant’s have started it up.” “Of course.  It’s natural.” “It keeps me thinking about Spain.  I know the region where the Seventh’s child’s aunt lives; I know all the lovely country for miles around; I’ll bet I’ve seen her aunt’s villa many a time; I’ll bet I’ve been in it in those pleasant old times when I was a Spanish gentleman.” “They say the child is wild to see Spain.” “It’s so; I know it from what I hear.” “Haven’t you talked with her about it?” “No.  I’ve avoided it.  I should soon be as wild as she is.  That would not be comfortable.” “I wish I was going, Antonio.  There’s two things I’d give a lot to see.  One’s a railroad.” “She’ll see one when she strikes Missouri.” “The other’s a bull-fight.” “I’ve seen lots of them; I wish I could see another.” “I don’t know anything about it, except in a mixed-up, foggy way, Antonio, but I know enough to know it’s grand sport.” “The grandest in the world!  There’s no other sport that begins with it.  I’ll tell you what I’ve seen, then you can judge.  It was my first, and it’s as vivid to me now as it was when I saw it.  It was a Sunday afternoon, and beautiful weather, and my uncle, the priest, took me as a reward for being a good boy and because of my own accord and without anybody asking me I had bankrupted my savings-box and given the money to a mission that was civilizing the Chinese and sweetening their lives and softening their hearts with the gentle teachings of our religion, and I wish you could have seen what we saw that day, Thorndike. “The amphitheatre was packed, from the bull-ring to the highest row—twelve thousand people in one circling mass, one slanting, solid mass—royalties, nobles, clergy, ladies, gentlemen, state officials, generals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, thieves, merchants, brokers, cooks, housemaids, scullery-maids, doubtful women, dudes, gamblers, beggars, loafers, tramps, American ladies, gentlemen, preachers, English ladies, gentlemen, preachers, German ditto, French ditto, and so on and so on, all the world represented: Spaniards to admire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find fault—there they were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of rippling and flashing color under the downpour of the summer sun—just a garden, a gaudy, gorgeous flower-garden!  Children munching oranges, six thousand fans fluttering and glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with their intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and salutation to other lovely girl-faces, gray old ladies and gentlemen dealing in the like exchanges with each other—ah, such a picture of cheery contentment and glad anticipation! not a mean spirit, nor a sordid soul, nor a sad heart there—ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it again. “Suddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur—clear the ring! “They clear it.  The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches in, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of the day, then the picadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded by his quadrille of chulos.  They march to the box of the city fathers, and formally salute.  The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked.  Another bugle blast—the gate flies open, the bull plunges in, furious, trembling, blinking in the blinding light, and stands there, a magnificent creature, centre of those multitudinous and admiring eyes, brave, ready for battle, his attitude a challenge.  He sees his enemy: horsemen sitting motionless, with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded broken-down nags, lean and starved, fit only for sport and sacrifice, then the carrion-heap. “The bull makes a rush, with murder in his eye, but a picador meets him with a spear-thrust in the shoulder.  He flinches with the pain, and the picador skips out of danger.  A burst of applause for the picador, hisses for the bull.  Some shout ‘Cow!’ at the bull, and call him offensive names.  But he is not listening to them, he is there for business; he is not minding the cloak-bearers that come fluttering around to confuse him; he chases this way, he chases that way, and hither and yon, scattering the nimble banderillos in every direction like a spray, and receiving their maddening darts in his neck as they dodge and fly—oh, but it’s a lively spectacle, and brings down the house!  Ah, you should hear the thundering roar that goes up when the game is at its wildest and brilliant things are done! “Oh, that first bull, that day, was great!  From the moment the spirit of war rose to flood-tide in him and he got down to his work, he began to do wonders.  He tore his way through his persecutors, flinging one of them clear over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down, and plunged straight for the next, got home with his horns, wounding both horse and man; on again, here and there and this way and that; and one after another he tore the bowels out of two horses so that they gushed to the ground, and ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him to cover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents with tow and rode him against the bull again, he couldn’t make the trip; he tried to gallop, under the spur, but soon reeled and tottered and fell, all in a heap.  For a while, that bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious and inspiring sight that ever was seen.  The bull absolutely cleared it, and stood there alone! monarch of the place.  The people went mad for pride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn’t hear yourself think, for the roar and boom and crash of applause.” “Antonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear you tell it; it must have been perfectly splendid.  If I live, I’ll see a bull-fight yet before I die.  Did they kill him?” “Oh yes; that is what the bull is for.  They tired him out, and got him at last.  He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped smartly and gracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance; and at last it came; the bull made a deadly plunge for him—was avoided neatly, and as he sped by, the long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder and spine—in and in, to the hilt.  He crumpled down, dying.” “Ah, Antonio, it is the noblest sport that ever was.  I would give a year of my life to see it.  Is the bull always killed?” “Yes.  Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat.  Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it.  When he has furnished all the sport he can, he is not any longer useful, and is killed.” “Well, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful.  Burning a nigger don’t begin.” <h3>CHAPTER XII—MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE</h3> “Sage-Brush, you have been listening?” “Yes.” “Isn’t it strange?” “Well, no, Mongrel, I don’t know that it is.” “Why don’t you?” “I’ve seen a good many human beings in my time.  They are created as they are; they cannot help it.  They are only brutal because that is their make; brutes would be brutal if it was their make.” “To me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable.  Why should he treat dumb animals that way when they are not doing any harm?” “Man is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough when he is not excited by religion.” “Is the bull-fight a religious service?” “I think so.  I have heard so.  It is held on Sunday.” (A reflective pause, lasting some moments.)  Then: “When we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell with man?” “My father thought not.  He believed we do not have to go there unless we deserve it.” <h2>PART II—IN SPAIN</h2> <h3>CHAPTER XIII—GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER</h3> It was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through the Rockies and the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the Great Plains to civilization and the Missouri border—where the railroading began and the delightfulness ended.  But no one is the worse for the journey; certainly not Cathy, nor Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not complaining. Spain is all that Cathy had pictured it—and more, she says.  She is in a fury of delight, the maddest little animal that ever was, and all for joy.  She thinks she remembers Spain, but that is not very likely, I suppose.  The two—Mercedes and Cathy—devour each other.  It is a rapture of love, and beautiful to see.  It is Spanish; that describes it.  Will this be a short visit? No.  It will be permanent.  Cathy has elected to abide with Spain and her aunt.  Dorcas says she (Dorcas) foresaw that this would happen; and also says that she wanted it to happen, and says the child’s own country is the right place for her, and that she ought not to have been sent to me, I ought to have gone to her.  I thought it insane to take Soldier Boy to Spain, but it was well that I yielded to Cathy’s pleadings; if he had been left behind, half of her heart would have remained with him, and she would not have been contented.  As it is, everything has fallen out for the best, and we are all satisfied and comfortable.  It may be that Dorcas and I will see America again some day; but also it is a case of maybe not. We left the post in the early morning.  It was an affecting time.  The women cried over Cathy, so did even those stern warriors, the Rocky Mountain Rangers; Shekels was there, and the Cid, and Sardanapalus, and Potter, and Mongrel, and Sour-Mash, Famine, and Pestilence, and Cathy kissed them all and wept; details of the several arms of the garrison were present to represent the rest, and say good-bye and God bless you for all the soldiery; and there was a special squad from the Seventh, with the oldest veteran at its head, to speed the Seventh’s Child with grand honors and impressive ceremonies; and the veteran had a touching speech by heart, and put up his hand in salute and tried to say it, but his lips trembled and his voice broke, but Cathy bent down from the saddle and kissed him on the mouth and turned his defeat to victory, and a cheer went up. The next act closed the ceremonies, and was a moving surprise.  It may be that you have discovered, before this, that the rigors of military law and custom melt insensibly away and disappear when a soldier or a regiment or the garrison wants to do something that will please Cathy.  The bands conceived the idea of stirring her soldierly heart with a farewell which would remain in her memory always, beautiful and unfading, and bring back the past and its love for her whenever she should think of it; so they got their project placed before General Burnaby, my successor, who is Cathy’s newest slave, and in spite of poverty of precedents they got his permission.  The bands knew the child’s favorite military airs.  By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn’t.  She was asked to sound the “reveille,” which she did. [REVEILLE] With the last note the bands burst out with a crash: and woke the mountains with the “Star-Spangled Banner” in a way to make a body’s heart swell and thump and his hair rise!  It was enough to break a person all up, to see Cathy’s radiant face shining out through her gladness and tears.  By request she blew the “assembly,” now. . . . [THE ASSEMBLY] . . . Then the bands thundered in, with “Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again!”  Next, she blew another call (“to the Standard”) . . . [TO THE STANDARD] . . . and the bands responded with “When we were marching through Georgia.”  Straightway she sounded “boots and saddles,” that thrilling and most expediting call. . . . [BOOTS AND SADDLES] and the bands could hardly hold in for the final note; then they turned their whole strength loose on “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,” and everybody’s excitement rose to blood-heat. Now an impressive pause—then the bugle sang “TAPS”—translatable, this time, into “Good-bye, and God keep us all!” for taps is the soldier’s nightly release from duty, and farewell: plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for the morning is never sure, for him; always it is possible that he is hearing it for the last time. . . . [TAPS] . . . Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy and burst in with that rollicking frenzy of a tune, “Oh, we’ll all get blind drunk when Johnny comes marching home—yes, we’ll all get blind drunk when Johnny comes marching home!” and followed it instantly with “Dixie,” that antidote for melancholy, merriest and gladdest of all military music on any side of the ocean—and that was the end.  And so—farewell! I wish you could have been there to see it all, hear it all, and feel it: and get yourself blown away with the hurricane huzza that swept the place as a finish. When we rode away, our main body had already been on the road an hour or two—I speak of our camp equipage; but we didn’t move off alone: when Cathy blew the “advance” the Rangers cantered out in column of fours, and gave us escort, and were joined by White Cloud and Thunder-Bird in all their gaudy bravery, and by Buffalo Bill and four subordinate scouts.  Three miles away, in the Plains, the Lieutenant-General halted, sat her horse like a military statue, the bugle at her lips, and put the Rangers through the evolutions for half an hour; and finally, when she blew the “charge,” she led it herself.  “Not for the last time,” she said, and got a cheer, and we said good-bye all around, and faced eastward and rode away. Postscript.  A Day Later.  Soldier Boy was stolen last night.  Cathy is almost beside herself, and we cannot comfort her.  Mercedes and I are not much alarmed about the horse, although this part of Spain is in something of a turmoil, politically, at present, and there is a good deal of lawlessness.  In ordinary times the thief and the horse would soon be captured.  We shall have them before long, I think. <h3>CHAPTER XIV—SOLDIER BOY—TO HIMSELF</h3> It is five months.  Or is it six?  My troubles have clouded my memory.  I have been all over this land, from end to end, and now I am back again since day before yesterday, to that city which we passed through, that last day of our long journey, and which is near her country home.  I am a tottering ruin and my eyes are dim, but I recognized it.  If she could see me she would know me and sound my call.  I wish I could hear it once more; it would revive me, it would bring back her face and the mountains and the free life, and I would come—if I were dying I would come!  She would not know me, looking as I do, but she would know me by my star.  But she will never see me, for they do not let me out of this shabby stable—a foul and miserable place, with most two wrecks like myself for company. How many times have I changed hands?  I think it is twelve times—I cannot remember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time I got a harder master.  They have been cruel, every one; they have worked me night and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me ill, and some days not at all.  And so I am but bones, now, with a rough and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body—that skin which was once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her hand.  I was the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow and despised.  These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here say we have reached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they say that when a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed to him, they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make sport for the people and perish for their pleasure. To die—that does not disturb me; we of the service never care for death.  But if I could see her once more! if I could hear her bugle sing again and say, “It is I, Soldier—come!” <h3>CHAPTER XV—GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL’S WIFE</h3> To return, now, to where I was, and tell you the rest.  We shall never know how she came to be there; there is no way to account for it.  She was always watching for black and shiny and spirited horses—watching, hoping, despairing, hoping again; always giving chase and sounding her call, upon the meagrest chance of a response, and breaking her heart over the disappointment; always inquiring, always interested in sales-stables and horse accumulations in general.  How she got there must remain a mystery. At the point which I had reached in a preceding paragraph of this account, the situation was as follows: two horses lay dying; the bull had scattered his persecutors for the moment, and stood raging, panting, pawing the dust in clouds over his back, when the man that had been wounded returned to the ring on a remount, a poor blindfolded wreck that yet had something ironically military about his bearing—and the next moment the bull had ripped him open and his bowls were dragging upon the ground: and the bull was charging his swarm of pests again.  Then came pealing through the air a bugle-call that froze my blood—“It is I, Soldier—come!”  I turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed people; she cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that riderless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered sound; but his strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she lavishing kisses upon him and sobbing, the house rising with one impulse, and white with horror!  Before help could reach her the bull was back again— She was never conscious again in life.  We bore her home, all mangled and drenched in blood, and knelt by her and listened to her broken and wandering words, and prayed for her passing spirit, and there was no comfort—nor ever will be, I think.  But she was happy, for she was far away under another sky, and comrading again with her Rangers, and her animal friends, and the soldiers.  Their names fell softly and caressingly from her lips, one by one, with pauses between.  She was not in pain, but lay with closed eyes, vacantly murmuring, as one who dreams.  Sometimes she smiled, saying nothing; sometimes she smiled when she uttered a name—such as Shekels, or BB, or Potter.  Sometimes she was at her fort, issuing commands; sometimes she was careering over the plain at the head of her men; sometimes she was training her horse; once she said, reprovingly, “You are giving me the wrong foot; give me the left—don’t you know it is good-bye?” After this, she lay silent some time; the end was near.  By-and-by she murmured, “Tired . . . sleepy . . . take Cathy, mamma.”  Then, “Kiss me, Soldier.”  For a little time, she lay so still that we were doubtful if she breathed.  Then she put out her hand and began to feel gropingly about; then said, “I cannot find it; blow ‘taps.’”  It was the end. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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