Chapter III: Part I (2)

“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. . . .

[Picture: Music score for The Reveille] {80}

“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_!’ . . .

[Picture: Soldier Boy’s Bugle Call [music score]]

. . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!”

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.”

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!”

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!

[Picture: “There was nothing to do but stand by”]

“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 Cæsar 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!”

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.”

XI SEVERAL MONTHS LATER. ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE

“THORNDIKE, isn’t that Plug you’re riding an asset 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.”

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.”