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