THREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing.

I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on

its four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,

in that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this

causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high

in the air, and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are,

but its method of traveling shows that it is not of our breed.

The short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is a of

the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of that species,

since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does.

Still it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been

catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified

in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it,

and hence have called it KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS. . . . It must have

been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.

It must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when

discontented it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times

the noise it made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has

the contrary effect. For this reason I discontinued the system.

She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she

had previously told me she wouldn't give it. As already observed,

I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found it

in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it

must be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find

another one to add to my collection, and for this to play with;

for surely then it would be quieter and we could tame it more easily.

But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all,

no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself;

therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?

I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small

animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out

of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never

drink it.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is

very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting

its growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur,

but exactly like our hair except that it is much finer and softer,

and instead of being black is red. I am like to lose my mind over

the capricious and harassing developments of this unclassifiable

zoological freak. If I could catch another one--but that is hopeless;

it is a new variety, and the only sample; this is plain. But I

caught a true kangaroo and brought it in, thinking that this one,

being lonesome, would rather have that for company than have no kin

at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy

from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do not

know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it

is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such fits at

the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen

one before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is

nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could tame it--but that is

out of the question; the more I try the worse I seem to make it.

It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow

and passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it.

That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right.

It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one,

how could IT?

FIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports

itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its

hind legs, and then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear;

and yet it has no tail--as yet--and no fur, except upon its head.

It still keeps on growing--that is a curious circumstance,

for bears get their growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous

--since our catastrophe--and I shall not be satisfied to have this

one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle on.

I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go,

but it did no good--she is determined to run us into all sorts

of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she lost

her mind.

A FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet:

it has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise

now than it ever did before--and mainly at night. I have moved out.

But I shall go over, mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has

more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of teeth it will be time for it

to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does not need a tail in order to

be dangerous.

FOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a month,

up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it

is because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear

has learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs,

and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly a new species.

This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of course,

and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is

still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do.

This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur

and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new

kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.

Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of

the north and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be

another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it

has company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will

muzzle this one first.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have

had no success. In the mean time, without stirring from the

home estate, she has caught another one! I never saw such luck.

I might have hunted these woods a hundred years, I never would

have run across that thing.

NEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old one,

and it is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed.

I was going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she

is prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I have

relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would

be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away.

The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a parrot,

having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much,

and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree.

I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot;

and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been

everything else it could think of since those first days when it

was a fish. The new one is as ugly as the old one was at first;

has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and the same singular

head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.

TEN YEARS LATER.--They are BOYS; we found it out long ago.

It was their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us;

we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy,

but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all

these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning;

it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it

without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should

be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.

Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me

to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!

EVE'S DIARY

Translated from the Original

SATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.

That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was

a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I

should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen,

and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now,

and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it.

It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused,

for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be

important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment,

I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person

to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel

convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment,

and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not;

I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it,

but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my

position assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it?

The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance

is the price of supremacy. [That is a good phrase, I think, for one

so young.]

Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of

finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,

and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants

that the aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works

of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world

is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously

near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time.

There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others,

but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The moon got

loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme

--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it. There isn't

another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable

to it for beauty and finish. It should have been fastened better.

If we can only get it back again--

But of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides,

whoever gets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself.

I believe I can be honest in all other matters, but I already

begin to realize that the core and center of my nature is love

of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and that it would

not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged to another person

and that person didn't know I had it. I could give up a moon that I

found in the daytime, because I should be afraid some one was looking;

but if I found it in the dark, I am sure I should find some kind

of an excuse for not saying anything about it. For I do love moons,

they are so pretty and so romantic. I wish we had five or six;

I would never go to bed; I should never get tired lying on the moss-bank

and looking up at them.

Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair.

But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far

off they are, for they do not look it. When they first showed,

last night, I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach,

which astonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out,

but I never got one. It was because I am left-handed and cannot

throw good. Even when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I

couldn't hit the other one, though I did make some close shots,

for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into the midst of

the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them,

and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could have

got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,

and after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the

extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground

and I could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway,

because I could gather them tenderly then, and not break them.

But it was farther than I thought, and at last I had go give it up;

I was so tired I couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides,

they were sore and hurt me very much.

I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold;

but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most

adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant,

because they live on strawberries. I had never seen a tiger before,

but I knew them in a minute by the stripes. If I could have one

of those skins, it would make a lovely gown.

Today I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so eager

to get hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it,

sometimes when it was too far off, and sometimes when it was but

six inches away but seemed a foot--alas, with thorns between!

I learned a lesson; also I made an axiom, all out of my own head

--my very first one; THE SCRATCHED EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE THORN.

I think it is a very good one for one so young.

I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon,

at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was

not able to make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man,

but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is.

I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any

of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is;

for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile.

It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads

itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may

be architecture.

I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it

turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by

and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I

was not timid any more, but tracked it along, several hours,

about twenty yards behind, which made it nervous and unhappy.

At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a tree. I waited

a good while, then gave it up and went home.

Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.

SUNDAY.--It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that is

a subterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed

for that. It looks to me like a creature that is more interested

in resting than it anything else. It would tire me to rest so much.

It tires me just to sit around and watch the tree. I do wonder

what it is for; I never see it do anything.

They returned the moon last night, and I was SO happy! I think

it is very honest of them. It slid down and fell off again,

but I was not distressed; there is no need to worry when one has

that kind of neighbors; they will fetch it back. I wish I could

do something to show my appreciation. I would like to send them

some stars, for we have more than we can use. I mean I, not we,

for I can see that the reptile cares nothing for such things.

It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yesterday

evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch

the little speckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had

to clod it to make it go up the tree again and let them alone.

I wonder if THAT is what it is for? Hasn't it any heart?

Hasn't it any compassion for those little creature? Can it be

that it was designed and manufactured for such ungentle work?

It has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of the ear,

and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I

had ever heard speech, except my own. I did not understand the words,

but they seemed expressive.

When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I

love to talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am

very interesting, but if I had another to talk to I could be twice

as interesting, and would never stop, if desired.

If this reptile is a man, it isn't an IT, is it? That wouldn't

be grammatical, would it? I think it would be HE. I think so.

In that case one would parse it thus: nominative, HE; dative, HIM;

possessive, HIS'N. Well, I will consider it a man and call it he

until it turns out to be something else. This will be handier

than having so many uncertainties.

NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried

to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy,

but I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I

used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him

to be included.

WEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting

better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more,

which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him.

That pleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can,

so as to increase his regard. During the last day or two I

have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this

has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line,

and is evidently very grateful. He can't think of a rational name

to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect.

Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time

to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have

saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like this.

The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't

have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly,

just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am

sure it wasn't in me half a minute before. I seem to know just

by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal

it is.

When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it

in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it

in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite

natural way of pleasing surprise, and not as if I was dreaming

of conveying information, and said, "Well, I do declare, if there

isn't the dodo!" I explained--without seeming to be explaining

--how I know it for a dodo, and although I thought maybe he was

a little piqued that I knew the creature when he didn't, it was

quite evident that he admired me. That was very agreeable, and I

thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept.

How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have

earned it!

THURSDAY.--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed

to wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe it,

and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him,

and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could

feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything? But at last it

seemed true, so I went away and sat lonely in the place where I first

saw him the morning that we were made and I did not know what he

was and was indifferent about him; but now it was a mournful place,

and every little think spoke of him, and my heart was very sore.

I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling; I had

not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and I could

not make it out.

But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went

to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done

that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again;

but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.

SUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were

heavy days; I do not think of them when I can help it.

I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to

throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him.

They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I

come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?

MONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.

But he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me

his name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears

than any other sound.

He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright,

and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is

such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing;

it is in the heart that the values lie. I wish I could make him

understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough,

and that without it intellect is poverty.

Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable

vocabulary. This morning he used a surprisingly good word.

He evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for he

worked in in twice afterward, casually. It was good casual art,

still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of perception.

Without a doubt that seed can be made to grow, if cultivated.

Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.

No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment,

but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the

moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger

for companionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to.

It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool

--but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness.

It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with

its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl;

I will be your friend." It IS a good friend to me, and my only one;

it is my sister.

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget that

--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, "She was all

I had, and now she is gone!" In my despair I said, "Break, my heart;

I cannot bear my life any more!" and hid my face in my hands,

and there was no solace for me. And when I took them away,

after a little, there she was again, white and shining and beautiful,

and I sprang into her arms!

That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was

not like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward.

Sometimes she stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the

whole day, but I waited and did not doubt; I said, "She is busy,

or she is gone on a journey, but she will come." And it was so:

she always did. At night she would not come if it was dark, for she

was a timid little thing; but if there was a moon she would come.

I am not afraid of the dark, but she is younger than I am; she was

born after I was. Many and many are the visits I have paid her;

she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard--and it is

mainly that.

TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate;

and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get

lonely and come. But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all

about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,

those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the

sky and preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths

and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon

--apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited.

But he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not

care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one

from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does

not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care

for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for,

except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain,

and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering

the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it

with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had,

and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film

rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran! I thought

it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened! But I looked back, and it

was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and rested and panted,

and let my limps go on trembling until they got steady again;

then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there

was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted the branches

of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man was about,

I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.

I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.

I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it

out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth;

and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting,

I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began

to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it

occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE!

I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world.

So without hesitation I named it that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added

a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this,

and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him

and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem

--but I reflected, and did not do it. No--he would not care for it.

He would ask what it was good for, and what could I answer? for if it

was not GOOD for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful--

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good for anything;

it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could

not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness

and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words.

But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love you,

you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL--and that is enough!"

and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained.

Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly

like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:

"THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE."

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied

it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home

and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it

sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran.

When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching

and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name

of it--SMOKE!--though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.

Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke,

and I named them in an instant--FLAMES--and I was right, too,

though these were the very first flames that had ever been

in the world. They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly

in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke,

and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture,

it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for

many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he

should ask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course,

and I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know

and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him.

After a pause he asked:

"How did it come?"

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.

"I made it."

The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge

of the burned place and stood looking down, and said:

"What are these?"

"Fire-coals."

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it

down again. Then he went away. NOTHING interests him.

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate

and pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the embers;

I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out,

and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active.

But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled.

Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones.

Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.

FRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall,

but only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying

to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard.

But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also

displeased on another account: I tried once more to persuade him

to stop going over the Falls. That was because the fire had revealed

to me a new passion--quite new, and distinctly different from love,

grief, and those others which I had already discovered--FEAR. And it

is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments,

it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder.

But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet,

and so he could not understand me.

Extract from Adam's Diary

Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and

make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world

is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for

delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it

and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it.

And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage,

blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains,

the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon

sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering

in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value,

so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty,

that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.

If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time,

it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could

enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming

to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature

--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once

when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder,

with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes,

watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she

was beautiful.

MONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not

interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am

indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination,

she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures,

every new one is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded

it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good

sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things.

She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the

homestead and move out. She believed it could be tamed by kind

treatment and would be a good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet

high and eighty-four feet long would be no proper thing to have

about the place, because, even with the best intentions and without

meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it,

for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she

couldn't give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it,

and wanted me to help milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky.

The sex wasn't right, and we hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she

wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery. Thirty or forty feet

of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she

thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got

to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would

have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;

untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them.

It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the

influence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it

up myself. Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus:

she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could

stand in the river and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he

was already plenty tame enough--at least as far as she was concerned

--so she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him

properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him,

he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain. Like the

other animals. They all do that.

FRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without

seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better

to be alone than unwelcome.

I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made

friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have

the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour,

they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you

and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready

for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.

I think they are perfect gentlemen. All these days we have had such

good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever. Lonesome! No,

I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm of them around

--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count them;

and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the

furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color

and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes,

that you might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't;

and there's storms of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings;

and when the sun strikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing

up of all the colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;

almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler,

and the only one. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight

--there's nothing like it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger

or a leopard, because it is soft and has a round back that fits me,

and because they are such pretty animals; but for long distance

or for scenery I ride the elephant. He hoists me up with his trunk,

but I can get off myself; when we are ready to camp, he sits and I

slide down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there

are no disputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk

to me, but it must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out

a word they say; yet they often understand me when I talk back,

particularly the dog and the elephant. It makes me ashamed.

It shows that they are brighter than I am, for I want to be the

principal Experiment myself--and I intend to be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I

wasn't at first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex

me because, with all my watching, I was never smart enough to be

around when the water was running uphill; but now I do not mind it.

I have experimented and experimented until now I know it never

does run uphill, except in the dark. I know it does in the dark,

because the pool never goes dry, which it would, of course,

if the water didn't come back in the night. It is best to prove

things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas if you depend

on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get educated.

Some things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you can't

by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on

experimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is

delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting.

If there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying

to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying

to find out and finding out, and I don't know but more so.

The secret of the water was a treasure until I GOT it; then the

excitement all went away, and I recognized a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers,

and plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence

you know that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply

knowing it, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now.

But I shall find a way--then THAT excitement will go. Such things

make me sad; because by and by when I have found out everything

there won't be any more excitements, and I do love excitements so!

The other night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it.

At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it

was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy

and thank the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many

things to learn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying

too fast I think they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you

cast up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight;

then you throw up a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time.

I have tried it and tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why

it is? Of course it DOESN'T come down, but why should it SEEM to?

I suppose it is an optical illusion. I mean, one of them is.

I don't know which one. It may be the feather, it may be the clod;

I can't prove which it is, I can only demonstrate that one or the other

is a fake, and let a person take his choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last.

I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky.

Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt,

they can all melt the same night. That sorrow will come--I know it.

I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can

keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory,

so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore

those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again,

and double them by the blur of my tears.

After the Fall

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,

surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost,

and I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content.

He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength

of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth

and sex. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know,

and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind

of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one's

love for other reptiles and animals. I think that this must be so.

I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam

on account of his singing--no, it is not that; the more he sings

the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing,

because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in.

I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand it,

but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get

used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is

not that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is,

for he did not make it himself; he is as God make him, and that

is sufficient. There was a wise purpose in it, THAT I know.

In time it will develop, though I think it will not be sudden;

and besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and

his delicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard,

but he is well enough just so, and is improving.

It is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is

not that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he

conceals it from me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank

and open with me, now. I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this.

It grieves me that he should have a secret from me, and sometimes it

spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but I will put it out of my mind;

it shall not trouble my happiness, which is otherwise full

to overflowing.

It is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is

not that. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude

of things, but they are not so.

It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not that.

He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,

I think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have

told on him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity

of sex, too, and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make

my sex.

Then why is it that I love him? MERELY BECAUSE HE IS MASCULINE,

I think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love

him without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go

on loving him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.

He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him

and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities.

He he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should

love him; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray

for him, and watch by his bedside until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is MASCULINE.

There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I

first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings

and statistics. It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot

explain itself. And doesn't need to.

It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has

examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance

and inexperience I have not got it right.

Forty Years Later

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this

life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth,

but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves,

until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I;

for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is

to me--life without him would not be life; now could I endure it?

This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up

while my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I

shall be repeated.

At Eve's Grave

ADAM: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.

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A HORSE'S TALE

CHAPTER I--SOLDIER BOY--PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF

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.

CHAPTER II--LETTER FROM ROUEN--TO GENERAL ALISON

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.

CHAPTER III--GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER

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.

CHAPTER IV--CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES

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.

CHAPTER V--GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES

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.

CHAPTER VI--SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG

"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!"

CHAPTER VII--SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS

"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."

CHAPTER VIII--THE SCOUT-START. BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON

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!"

CHAPTER IX--SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN

"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!"

CHAPTER X--GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS

"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."

CHAPTER XI--SEVERAL MONTHS LATER. ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE

"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."

CHAPTER XII--MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE

"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."

PART II--IN SPAIN

CHAPTER XIII--GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER