A Horse's Tale Part 4

"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 f.a.n.n.y 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 'a.s.sembly'; 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 G.o.d!' 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 pa.s.sion 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. G.o.d bless you for it!"

CHAPTER X--GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS

"Too much company for her, Ma.r.s.e 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!"

"Ma.r.s.e 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, Ma.r.s.e 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, Ma.r.s.e Tom, and I ain't saying it by guess."