Chapter I: Front Matter

[Picture: Book cover]

[Picture: “Buffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird’s Camp”]

A Horse’s Tale

BY
Mark Twain

ILLUSTRATED BY
LUCIUS HITCHCOCK

[Picture: Decorative graphic]

LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS .. MCMVII

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Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.

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_All rights reserved_

Published October, 1907.

_Printed in United States of America_.

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE
I. SOLDIER BOY—PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF 1
II. LETTER FROM ROUEN—TO GENERAL ALISON 12
III. GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER 19
IV. CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES 25
V. GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES 33
VI. SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG 56
VII. SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS 82
VIII. THE SCOUT-START. BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 88
ALISON
IX. SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN 90
X. GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS 100
XI. SEVERAL MONTHS LATER. ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE 116
XII. MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE 129
XIII. GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER 133
XIV. SOLDIER BOY—TO HIMSELF 145
XV. GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL’S WIFE 149

Illustrations

“Buffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to _Frontispiece_ Thunder-Bird’s Camp” “Look at that file of cats in your chair” p. 48 “Every morning they go clattering down into the 66 plain” “There was nothing to do but stand by” 92 “His strength failed and he fell at her feet” 150

Acknowledgements

Although I have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, I have never seen one; but I needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy one will be found in it. I got it out of John Hay’s _Castilian Days_, reducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story. Mr. Hay and I were friends from early times, and if he were still with us he would not rebuke me for the liberty I have taken.

The knowledge of military minutiæ exhibited in this book will be found to be correct, but it is not mine; I took it from _Army Regulations_, ed. 1904; _Hardy’s Tactics_—_Cavalry_, revised ed., 1861; and _Jomini’s Handbook of Military Etiquette_, West Point ed., 1905.

It would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that I composed the Horse’s private bugle-call, for I did not. I lifted it, as Aristotle says. It is the opening strain in _The Pizzicato_ in _Sylvia_, by Delibes. When that master was composing it he did not know it was a bugle-call, it was I that found it out.

Along through the book I have distributed a few anachronisms and unborn historical incidents and such things, so as to help the tale over the difficult places. This idea is not original with me; I got it out of Herodotus. Herodotus says, “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.”

The cats in the chair do not belong to me, but to another.

These are all the exceptions. What is left of the book is mine.

MARK TWAIN.

LONE TREE HILL, DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, _October_, 1905.