Van

: Starlight Ranch

He was the evolution of a military horse-trade,--one of those periodical

swappings required of his dragoons by Uncle Sam on those rare occasions

when a regiment that has been dry-rotting half a decade in Arizona is at

last relieved by one from the Plains. How it happened that we of the

Fifth should have kept him from the clutches of those sharp

horse-fanciers of the Sixth is more than I know. Regimental tradition

had i that we got him from the Third Cavalry when it came our turn to

go into exile in 1871. He was the victim of some temporary malady at the

time,--one of those multitudinous ills to which horse-flesh is heir,--or

he never would have come to us. It was simply impossible that anybody

who knew anything about horses should trade off such a promising young

racer so long as there remained an unpledged pay-account in the

officers' mess. Possibly the arid climate of Arizona had disagreed with

him and he had gone amiss, as would the mechanism of some of the best

watches in the regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot

and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of

Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in

pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished

fact, and Van was one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or

less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry,

U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like number of chargers left in the

stables along the recently-built Union Pacific to await the coming of

their new riders from the distant West.



We had never met in those days, Van and I. "Compadres" and chums as we

were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each

other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had

decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a

subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and

was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I

was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,--they go

together, somehow. Van was living on metaphorical clover down near

Tucson; I was roughing it out on the rocks of the Mogollon. Each after

his own fashion served out his time in the grim old Territory, and at

last "came marching home again;" and early in the summer of the

Centennial year, and just in the midst of the great Sioux war of 1876,

Van and I made each other's acquaintance.



What I liked about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he

adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the

occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the

regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial

fashion; his clear eyes, glistening coat, and joyous bearing spoke of

the perfection of health; his every glance and movement told of elastic

vigor and dauntless spirit. He was a horse with a pedigree,--let alone

any self-made reputation,--and he knew it; more than that, he knew that

I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he

liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though

demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal

flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was

established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the

strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched.

Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and

distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could

have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the

introduction of my own charger--the cavalryman's better half--was of

that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby.

Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier

fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and,

ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel

had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed

Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy

prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just

joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and

we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly

stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this

is Forager, of 'K' Troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to

admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray

thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He hated him

more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop

down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and

invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went,

Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both.

Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy

turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid

motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable,

this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style; while my poor old troop-horse, in

answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath

and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his

fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious

rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned

hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor

Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after

him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and

all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had

worn him out and never tried a spurt.



It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow Van,

and I soon found he had a history. Like other histories, it may have

been a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to

answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they

gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale

teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones,

but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun

and frolic as any colt, but the responsibilities of his position

weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the grave dignity

that should mark the movements of the first horse of the regiment.



And then Van was a born aristocrat. He was not impressive in point of

size; he was rather small, in fact; but there was that in his bearing

and demeanor that attracted instant attention. He was beautifully

built,--lithe, sinewy, muscular, with powerful shoulders and solid

haunches; his legs were what Oscar Wilde might have called poems, and

with better reason than when he applied the epithet to those of Henry

Irving: they were straight, slender, and destitute of those heterodox

developments at the joints that render equine legs as hideous

deformities as knee-sprung trousers of the present mode. His feet and

pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the senoritas (only for

pastern read ankle) who so admired him on festa days at Tucson, and

who won such stores of dulces from the scowling gallants who had with

genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. His color

was a deep, dark chocolate-brown; a most unusual tint, but Van was proud

of its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears,

his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of

spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest

greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right

there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing

ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance

for a match; and Mexicans, like Indians, are consummate horse-racers.



Not with the "greasers" alone had tact and diplomacy to be brought into

play. Van, though invoiced as a troop-horse sick, had attracted the

attention of the colonel from the very start, and the colonel had

speedily caused him to be transferred to his own stable, where,

carefully tended, fed, groomed, and regularly exercised, he speedily

gave evidence of the good there was in him. The colonel rarely rode in

those days, and cavalry-duties in garrison were few. The regiment was in

the mountains most of the time, hunting Apaches, but Van had to be

exercised every day; and exercised he was. "Jeff," the colonel's

orderly, would lead him sedately forth from his paddock every morning

about nine, and ride demurely off towards the quartermaster's stables in

rear of the garrison. Keen eyes used to note that Van had a way of

sidling along at such times as though his heels were too impatient to

keep at their appropriate distance behind the head, and "Jeff's" hand on

the bit was very firm, light as it was.



"Bet you what you like those 'L' Company fellows are getting Van in

training for a race," said the quartermaster to the adjutant one bright

morning, and the chuckle with which the latter received the remark was

an indication that the news was no news to him.



"If old Coach don't find it out too soon, some of these swaggering

caballeros around here are going to lose their last winnings," was his

answer. And, true to their cavalry instincts, neither of the

staff-officers saw fit to follow Van and his rider beyond the gate to

the corrals.



Once there, however, Jeff would bound off quick as a cat, Van would be

speedily taken in charge by a squad of old dragoon sergeants, his

cavalry bridle and saddle exchanged for a light racing-rig, and Master

Mickey Lanigan, son and heir of the regimental saddle-sergeant, would be

hoisted into his throne, and then Van would be led off, all plunging

impatience now, to an improvised race-track across the arroyo, where

he would run against his previous record, and where old horses from the

troop-stables would be spurred into occasional spurts with the champion,

while all the time vigilant "non-coms" would be thrown out as pickets

far and near, to warn off prying Mexican eyes and give notice of the

coming of officers. The colonel was always busy in his office at that

hour, and interruptions never came. But the race did, and more than one

race, too, occurring on Sundays, as Mexican races will, and well-nigh

wrecking the hopes of the garrison on one occasion because of the

colonel's sudden freak of holding a long mounted inspection on that day.

Had he ridden Van for two hours under his heavy weight and housings that

morning, all would have been lost. There was terror at Tucson when the

cavalry trumpets blew the call for mounted inspection, full dress, that

placid Sunday morning, and the sporting sergeants were well-nigh crazed.

Not an instant was to be lost. Jeff rushed to the stable, and in five

minutes had Van's near fore foot enveloped in a huge poultice, much to

Van's amaze and disgust, and when the colonel came down,



Booted and spurred and prepared for a ride,



there stood Jeff in martial solemnity, holding the colonel's other

horse, and looking, as did the horse, the picture of dejection.



"What'd you bring me that infernal old hearse-horse for?" said the

colonel. "Where's Van?"



"In the stable, dead lame, general," said Jeff, with face of woe, but

with diplomatic use of the brevet. "Can't put his nigh fore foot to the

ground, sir. I've got it poulticed, sir, and he'll be all right in a day

or two----"



"Sure it ain't a nail?" broke in the colonel, to whom nails in the foot

were sources of perennial dread.



"Perfectly sure, general," gasped Jeff. "D--d sure!" he added, in a tone

of infinite relief, as the colonel rode out on the broad parade.

"'Twould 'a' been nails in the coffins of half the Fifth Cavalry if it

had been."



But that afternoon, while the colonel was taking his siesta, half the

populace of the good old Spanish town of Tucson was making the air blue

with carambas when Van came galloping under the string an easy winner

over half a score of Mexican steeds. The "dark horse" became a

notoriety, and for once in its history head-quarters of the Fifth

Cavalry felt the forthcoming visit of the paymaster to be an object of

indifference.



Van won other races in Arizona. No more betting could be got against him

around Tucson; but the colonel went off on leave, and he was borrowed

down at Camp Bowie awhile, and then transferred to Crittenden,--only

temporarily, of course, for no one at head-quarters would part with him

for good. Then, when the regiment made its homeward march across the

continent in 1875, Van somehow turned up at the festa races at

Albuquerque and Santa Fe, though the latter was off the line of march by

many miles. Then he distinguished himself at Pueblo by winning a

handicap sweepstakes where the odds were heavy against him. And so it

was that when I met Van at Fort Hays in May, 1876, he was a celebrity.

Even then they were talking of getting him down to Dodge City to run

against some horses on the Arkansaw; but other and graver matters turned

up. Van had run his last race.



Early that spring, or rather late in the winter, a powerful expedition

had been sent to the north of Fort Fetterman in search of the hostile

bands led by that dare-devil Sioux chieftain Crazy Horse. On "Patrick's

Day in the morning," with the thermometer indicating 30 deg. below, and

in the face of a biting wind from the north and a blazing glare from the

sheen of the untrodden snow, the cavalry came in sight of the Indian

encampment down in the valley of Powder River. The fight came off then

and there, and, all things considered, Crazy Horse got the best of it.

He and his people drew away farther north to join other roving bands.

The troops fell back to Fetterman to get a fresh start; and when spring

fairly opened, old "Gray Fox," as the Indians called General Crook,

marched a strong command up to the Big Horn Mountains, determined to

have it out with Crazy Horse and settle the question of supremacy before

the end of the season. Then all the unoccupied Indians in the North

decided to take a hand. All or most of them were bound by treaty

obligations to keep the peace with the government that for years past

had fed, clothed, and protected them. Nine-tenths of those who rushed to

the rescue of Crazy Horse and his people had not the faintest excuse

for their breach of faith; but it requires neither eloquence nor excuse

to persuade the average Indian to take the war-path. The reservations

were beset by vehement old strifemongers preaching a crusade against the

whites, and by early June there must have been five thousand eager young

warriors, under such leaders as Crazy Horse, Gall, Little Big Man, and

all manner of Wolves, Bears, and Bulls, and prominent among

the later that head-devil, scheming, lying, wire-pulling,

big-talker-but-no-fighter, Sitting Bull,--"Tatanka-e-Yotanka",--five

thousand fierce and eager Indians, young and old, swarming through the

glorious upland between the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, and more

a-coming.



Crook had reached the head-waters of Tongue River with perhaps twelve

hundred cavalry and infantry, and found that something must be done to

shut off the rush of reinforcements from the southeast. Then it was that

we of the Fifth, far away in Kansas, were hurried by rail through Denver

to Cheyenne, marched thence to the Black Hills to cut the trails from

the great reservations of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail to the disputed

ground of the Northwest; and here we had our own little personal tussle

with the Cheyennes, and induced them to postpone their further progress

towards Sitting Bull and to lead us back to the reservation. It was

here, too, we heard how Crazy Horse had pounced on Crook's columns on

the bluffs of the Rosebud that sultry morning of the 17th of June and

showed the Gray Fox that he and his people were too weak in numbers to

cope with them. It was here, too, worse luck, we got the tidings of the

dread disaster of the Sunday one week later, and listened in awed

silence to the story of Custer's mad attack on ten times his weight in

foes--and the natural result. Then came our orders to hasten to the

support of Crook, and so it happened that July found us marching for the

storied range of the Big Horn, and the first week in August landed us,

blistered and burned with sun-glare and stifling alkali-dust, in the

welcoming camp of Crook.



Then followed the memorable campaign of 1876. I do not mean to tell its

story here. We set out with ten days' rations on a chase that lasted ten

weeks. We roamed some eighteen hundred miles over range and prairie,

over "bad lands" and worse waters. We wore out some Indians, a good many

soldiers, and a great many horses. We sometimes caught the Indians, and

sometimes they caught us. It was hot, dry summer weather when we left

our wagons, tents, and extra clothing; it was sharp and freezing before

we saw them again; and meantime, without a rag of canvas or any covering

to our backs except what summer-clothing we had when we started, we had

tramped through the valleys of the Rosebud, Tongue, and Powder Rivers,

had loosened the teeth of some men with scurvy before we struck the

Yellowstone, had weeded out the wounded and ineffective there and sent

them to the East by river, had taken a fresh start and gone rapidly on

in pursuit of the scattering bands, had forded the Little Missouri near

where the Northern Pacific now spans the stream, run out of rations

entirely at the head of Heart River, and still stuck to the trail and

the chase, headed southward over rolling, treeless prairies, and for

eleven days and nights of pelting, pitiless rain dragged our way

through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days

among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game

we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out,

staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the

choice lay between them and our boots and most of us had no boots left

by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions

and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in

such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his

brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in

September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved,

worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses,--ah, well, only half of

them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line

of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe

and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We

straggled in towards the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us:

they had long since grown too weak to carry a rider.



Then came a leisurely saunter through the Hills. Crook bought up all the

provisions to be had in Deadwood and other little mining towns, turned

over the command to General Merritt, and hastened to the forts to

organize a new force, leaving to his successor instructions to come in

slowly, giving horses and men time to build up. Men began "building up"

fast enough; we did nothing but eat, sleep, and hunt grass for our

horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,--ah, that was

different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving

for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we

went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was

scant and wiry,--not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch grass of the

open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military

duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had

to be bustling around a good deal; and so it happened that one day the

colonel said to me, "Well, here's Van. He can't carry my weight any

longer. Suppose you take him and see if he won't pick up." And that

beautiful October day found the racer of the regiment, though the ghost

of his former self, transferred to my keeping.



All through the campaign we had been getting better acquainted, Van and

I. The colonel seldom rode him, but had him led along with the

head-quarters party in the endeavor to save his strength. A big,

raw-boned colt, whom he had named "Chunka Witko," in honor of the Sioux

"Crazy Horse," the hero of the summer, had the honor of transporting the

colonel over most of those weary miles, and Van spent the long days on

the muddy trail in wondering when and where the next race was to come

off, and whether at this rate he would be fit for a finish. One day on

the Yellowstone I had come suddenly upon a quartermaster who had a peck

of oats on his boat. Oats were worth their weight in greenbacks, but so

was plug tobacco. He gave me half a peck for all the tobacco in my

saddle-bags, and, filling my old campaign hat with the precious grain, I

sat me down on a big log by the flowing Yellowstone and told poor old

"Donnybrook" to pitch in. "Donnybrook" was a "spare horse" when we

started on the campaign, and had been handed over to me after the fight

on the War Bonnet, where Merritt turned their own tactics on the

Cheyennes. He was sparer still by this time; and later, when we got to

the muddy banks of the "Heecha Wapka," there was nothing to spare of

him. The head-quarters party had dined on him the previous day, and only

groaned when that Mark Tapley of a surgeon remarked that if this was

Donnybrook Fare it was tougher than all the stories ever told of it.

Poor old Donnybrook! He had recked not of the coming woe that blissful

hour by the side of the rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my

lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,--he

would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to

happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation--he in his happiness,

I in the contemplation thereof--that neither of us noticed the rapid

approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close

beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came

trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly

ranging alongside his comrade of coarser mould and thrusting his velvet

muzzle into my lap, looked wistfully into my face with his great soft

brown eyes and pleaded for his share. Another minute, and, despite the

churlish snappings and threatening heels of Donnybrook, Van was supplied

with a portion as big as little Benjamin's, and, stretching myself

beside him on the sandy shore, I lay and watched his enjoyment. From

that hour he seemed to take me into his confidence, and his was a

friendship worth having. Time and again on the march to the Little

Missouri and southward to the Hills he indulged me with some slight but

unmistakable proof that he held me in esteem and grateful remembrance.

It may have been only a bid for more oats, but he kept it up long after

he knew there was not an oat in Dakota,--that part of it, at least. But

Van was awfully pulled down by the time we reached the pine-barrens up

near Deadwood. The scanty supply of forage there obtained (at starvation

price) would not begin to give each surviving horse in the three

regiments a mouthful. And so by short stages we plodded along through

the picturesque beauty of the wild Black Hills, and halted at last in

the deep valley of French Creek. Here there was grass for the horses and

rest for the men.



For a week now Van had been my undivided property, and was the object of

tender solicitude on the part of my German orderly, "Preuss," and

myself. The colonel had chosen for his house the foot of a big pine-tree

up a little ravine, and I was billeted alongside a fallen ditto a few

yards away. Down the ravine, in a little clump of trees, the

head-quarters stables were established, and here were gathered at

nightfall the chargers of the colonel and his staff. Custer City, an

almost deserted village, lay but a few miles off to the west, and

thither I had gone the moment I could get leave, and my mission was

oats. Three stores were still open, and, now that the troops had come

swarming down, were doing a thriving business. Whiskey, tobacco, bottled

beer, canned lobster, canned anything, could be had in profusion, but

not a grain of oats, barley, or corn. I went over to a miner's

wagon-train and offered ten dollars for a sack of oats. The boss

teamster said he would not sell oats for a cent apiece if he had them,

and so sent me back down the valley sore at heart, for I knew Van's

eyes, those great soft brown eyes, would be pleading the moment I came

in sight; and I knew more,--that somewhere the colonel had "made a

raise," that he had one sack, for Preuss had seen it, and Chunka Witko

had had a peck of oats the night before and another that very morning.

Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the

ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect

and eager eyes, came quickly towards me, whinnying welcome and inquiry

at the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in

prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a

gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to

give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats

and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve,

and I could not explain it.



That night Preuss came up and stood attention before my fire, where I

sat jotting down some memoranda in a note-book:



"Lieutenant, I kent shtaendt ut no longer yet. Dot scheneral's horse he

git oats ag'in diesen abent, unt Ven, he git noddings, unt he look, unt

look. He ot dot golt unt den ot me look, unt I couldn't shtaendt ut,

lieutenant----"



And Preuss stopped short and winked hard and drew his ragged

shirt-sleeve across his eyes.



Neither could I "shtaendt ut." I jumped up and went to the colonel and

begged a hatful of his precious oats, not for my sake, but for Van's.

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and your own horse

before that of all the world is the cavalryman's creed. It was a heap to

ask, but Van's claim prevailed, and down the dark ravine "in the

gloaming" Preuss and I hastened with eager steps and two hats full of

oats; and that rascal Van heard us laugh, and answered with impatient

neigh. He knew we had not come empty-handed this time.



Next morning, when every sprig and leaf was glistening in the brilliant

sunshine with its frosty dew, Preuss led Van away up the ravine to

picket him on a little patch of grass he had discovered the day before

and as he passed the colonel's fire a keen-eyed old veteran of the

cavalry service, who had stopped to have a chat with our chief, dropped

the stick on which he was whittling and stared hard at our attenuated

racer.



"Whose horse is that, orderly?" he asked.



"De etschudant's, colonel," said Preuss, in his labored dialect.



"The adjutant's! Where did he get him? Why, that horse is a runner!"

said "Black Bill," appreciatively.



And pretty soon Preuss came back to me, chuckling. He had not smiled for

six weeks.



"Ven--he veels pully dis morning," he explained. "Dot Colonel Royle he

shpeak mit him unt pet him, unt Ven, he laeff unt gick up mit his hint

lecks. He git vell bretty gwick yet."



Two days afterwards we broke up our bivouac on French Creek, for every

blade of grass was eaten off, and pushed over the hills to its near

neighbor, Amphibious Creek, an eccentric stream whose habit of diving

into the bowels of the earth at unexpected turns and disappearing from

sight entirely, only to come up surging and boiling some miles farther

down the valley, had suggested its singular name. "It was half land,

half water," explained the topographer of the first expedition that had

located and named the streams in these jealously-guarded haunts of the

red men. Over on Amphibious Creek we were joined by a motley gang of

recruits just enlisted in the distant cities of the East and sent out to

help us fight Indians. One out of ten might know how to load a gun, but

as frontier soldiers not one in fifty was worth having. But they brought

with them capital horses, strong, fat, grain-fed, and these we

campaigners levied on at once. Merritt led the old soldiers and the new

horses down into the valley of the Cheyenne on a chase after some

scattering Indian bands, while "Black Bill" was left to hammer the

recruits into shape and teach them how to care for invalid horses. Two

handsome young sorrels had come to me as my share of the plunder, and

with these for alternate mounts I rode the Cheyenne raid, leaving Van to

the fostering care of the gallant old cavalryman who had been so struck

with his points the week previous.



One week more, and the reunited forces of the expedition, Van and all,

trotted in to "round up" the semi-belligerent warriors at the Red Cloud

agency on White River, and, as the war-ponies and rifles of the scowling

braves were distributed among the loyal scouts, and dethroned

Machpealota (old Red Cloud) turned over the government of the great

Sioux nation, Ogallallas and all, to his more reliable rival,

Sintegaliska,--Spotted Tail,--Van surveyed the ceremony of abdication

from between my legs, and had the honor of receiving an especial pat and

an admiring "Washtay" from the new chieftain and lord of the loyal

Sioux. His highness Spotted Tail was pleased to say that he wouldn't

mind swapping four of his ponies for Van, and made some further remarks

which my limited knowledge of the Brule Dakota tongue did not enable me

to appreciate as they deserved. The fact that the venerable chieftain

had hinted that he might be induced to throw in a spare squaw "to boot"

was therefore lost, and Van was saved. Early November found us, after an

all-summer march of some three thousand miles, once more within sight

and sound of civilization. Van and I had taken station at Fort D. A.

Russell, and the bustling prairie city of Cheyenne lay only three miles

away. Here it was that Van became my pet and pride. Here he lived his

life of ease and triumph, and here, gallant fellow, he met his knightly

fate.



Once settled at Russell, all the officers of the regiment who were

blessed with wives and children were speedily occupied in getting their

quarters ready for their reception; and late in November my own little

household arrived and were presented to Van. He was then domesticated in

a rude but comfortable stable in rear of my little army-house, and there

he slept, was groomed and fed, but never confined. He had the run of our

yard, and, after critical inspection of the wood-shed, the coal-hole,

and the kitchen, Van seemed to decide upon the last-named as his

favorite resort. He looked with curious and speculative eyes upon our

darky cook on the arrival of that domestic functionary, and seemed for

once in his life to be a trifle taken aback by the sight of her woolly

pate and Ethiopian complexion. Hannah, however, was duly instructed by

her mistress to treat Van on all occasions with great consideration, and

this to Hannah's darkened intellect meant unlimited loaf-sugar. The

adjutant could not fail to note that Van was almost always to be seen

standing at the kitchen door, and on those rare occasions when he

himself was permitted to invade those premises he was never surprised to

find Van's shapely head peering in at the window, or head, neck, and

shoulders bulging in at the wood-shed beyond.



Yet the ex-champion and racer did not live an idle existence. He had his

hours of duty, and keenly relished them. Office-work over at

orderly-call, at high noon it was the adjutant's custom to return to his

quarters and speedily to appear in riding-dress on the front piazza. At

about the same moment Van, duly caparisoned, would be led forth from his

paddock, and in another moment he and his rider would be flying off

across the breezy level of the prairie. Cheyenne, as has been said, lay

just three miles away, and thither Van would speed with long, elastic

strides, as though glorying in his powers. It was at once his exercise

and his enjoyment, and to his rider it was the best hour of the day. He

rode alone, for no horse at Russell could keep alongside. He rode at

full speed, for in all the twenty-four that hour from twelve to one was

the only one he could call his own for recreation and for healthful

exercise. He rode to Cheyenne that he might be present at the event of

the day,--the arrival of the trans-continental train from the East. He

sometimes rode beyond, that he might meet the train when it was belated

and race it back to town; and this--this was Van's glory. The rolling

prairie lay open and free on each side of the iron track, and Van soon

learned to take his post upon a little mound whence the coming of the

"express" could be marked, and, as it flared into sight from the

darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement,

would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word

to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing

engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string,

and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the

engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the

"down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he

would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would

seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirling

wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out to keep alongside.



Month after month through the sharp mountain winter, so long as the snow

was not whirling through the air in clouds too dense to penetrate, Van

and his master had their joyous gallops. Then came the spring, slow,

shy, and reluctant as the springtide sets in on that high plateau in

mid-continent, and Van had become even more thoroughly domesticated. He

now looked upon himself as one of the family, and he knew the

dining-room window, and there, thrice each day and sometimes at odd

hours between, he would take his station while the household was at

table and plead with those great soft brown eyes for sugar.

Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of

untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,--a little girl

with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little

maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head

and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van

"took to her" from the very first. He courted the caress of her little

hand, and won her love and trust by the discretion of his movements when

she was near. As soon as the days grew warm enough, she was always out

on the front piazza when Van and I came home from our daily gallop, and

then she would trot out to meet us and be lifted to her perch on the

pommel; and then, with mincing gait, like lady's palfrey, stepping as

though he might tread on eggs and yet not crush them, Van would take the

little one on her own share of the ride. And so it was that the loyal

friendship grew and strengthened. The one trick he had was never

ventured upon when she was on his back, even after she became accustomed

to riding at rapid gait and enjoying the springy canter over the prairie

before Van went back to his stable. It was a strange trick: it proved a

fatal one.



No other horse I ever rode had one just like it. Running at full speed,

his hoofs fairly flashing through the air and never seeming to touch the

ground, he would suddenly, as it were, "change step" and gallop

"disunited," as we cavalrymen would say. At first I thought it must be

that he struck some rolling stone, but soon I found that when bounding

over the soft turf it was just the same; and the men who knew him in

the days of his prime in Arizona had noted it there. Of course there was

nothing to do for it but make him change back as quick as possible on

the run, for Van was deaf to remonstrance and proof against the rebuke

of spur. Perhaps he could not control the fault; at all events he did

not, and the effect was not pleasant. The rider felt a sudden jar, as

though the horse had come down stiff-legged from a hurdle-leap; and

sometimes it would be so sharp as to shake loose the forage-cap upon his

rider's head. He sometimes did it when going at easy lope, but never

when his little girl-friend was on his back; then he went on springs of

air.



One bright May morning all the different "troops," as the

cavalry-companies are termed, were out at drill on the broad prairie.

The colonel was away, the officer of the day was out drilling his own

company, the adjutant was seated in his office hard at work over

regimental papers, when in came the sergeant of the guard, breathless

and excited.



"Lieutenant," he cried, "six general prisoners have escaped from the

guard-house. They have got away down the creek towards town."



In hurried question and answer the facts were speedily brought out. Six

hard customers, awaiting sentence after trial for larceny, burglary,

assault with intent to kill, and finally desertion, had been cooped up

together in an inner room of the ramshackle old wooden building that

served for a prison, had sawed their way through to open air, and,

timing their essay by the sound of the trumpets that told them the whole

garrison would be out at morning drill, had slipped through the gap at

the right moment, slid down the hill into the creek-bottom, and then

scurried off townward. A sentinel down near the stables had caught sight

of them, but they were out of view long before his shouts had summoned

the corporal of the guard.



No time was to be lost. They were malefactors and vagabonds of the worst

character. Two of their number had escaped before and had made it their

boast that they could break away from the Russell guard at any time.

Directing the sergeant to return to his guard, and hurriedly scribbling

a note to the officer of the day, who had his whole troop with him in

the saddle out on the prairie, and sending it by the hand of the

sergeant-major, the adjutant hurried to his own quarters and called for

Van. The news had reached there already. News of any kind travels like

wildfire in a garrison, and Van was saddled and bridled before the

adjutant reached the gate.



"Bring me my revolver and belt,--quick," he said to the servant, as he

swung into saddle. The man darted into the house and came back with the

belt and holster.



"I was cleaning your 'Colt,' sir," he said, "but here's the Smith &

Wesson," handing up the burnished nickel-plated weapon then in use

experimentally on the frontier. Looking only to see that fresh

cartridges were in each chamber and that the hammer was on the

safety-notch, the adjutant thrust it into the holster, and in an instant

he and Van flew through the east gate in rapid pursuit.



Oh, how gloriously Van ran that day! Out on the prairie the gay guidons

of the troops were fluttering in the brilliant sunshine; here, there,

everywhere, the skirmish-lines and reserves were dotting the plain; the

air was ringing with the merry trumpet-calls and the stirring words of

command. Yet men forgot their drill and reined up on the line to watch

Van as he flashed by, wondering, too, what could take the adjutant off

at such an hour and at such a pace.



"What's the row?" shouted the commanding officer of one company.



"Prisoners loose," was the answer shouted back, but only indistinctly

heard. On went Van like one inspired, and as we cleared the drill-ground

and got well out on the open plain in long sweeping curve, we changed

our course, aiming more to the right, so as to strike the valley west of

the town. It was possible to get there first and head them off. Then

suddenly I became aware of something jolting up and down behind me. My

hand went back in search: there was no time to look: the prairie just

here was cut up with little gopher-holes and criss-crossed by tiny

canals from the main acequia, or irrigating ditch. It was that

wretched Smith & Wesson bobbing up and down in the holster. The Colt

revolver of the day was a trifle longer, and my man in changing pistols

had not thought to change holsters. This one, made for the Colt, was too

long and loose by half an inch, and the pistol was pounding up and down

with every stride. Just ahead of us came the flash of the sparkling

water in one of the little ditches. Van cleared it in his stride with no

effort whatever. Then, just beyond,--oh, fatal trick!--seemingly when in

mid-air he changed step, striking the ground with a sudden shock that

jarred us both and flung the downward-pointed pistol up against the

closely-buttoned holster-flap. There was a sharp report, and my heart

stood still an instant. I knew--oh, well I knew it was the death-note of

my gallant pet. On he went, never swaying, never swerving, never

slackening his racing speed; but, turning in the saddle and glancing

back, I saw, just back of the cantle, just to the right of the spine in

the glossy brown back, that one tiny, grimy, powder-stained hole. I knew

the deadly bullet had ranged downward through his very vitals. I knew

that Van had run his last race, was even now rushing towards a goal he

would never reach. Fast as he might fly, he could not leave Death

behind.



The chase was over. Looking back, I could see the troopers already

hastening in pursuit, but we were out of the race. Gently, firmly I drew

the rein. Both hands were needed, for Van had never stopped here, and

some strange power urged him on now. Full three hundred yards he ran

before he would consent to halt. Then I sprang from the saddle and ran

to his head. His eyes met mine. Soft and brown, and larger than ever,

they gazed imploringly. Pain and bewilderment, strange, wistful

pleading, but all the old love and trust, were there as I threw my arms

about his neck and bowed his head upon my breast. I could not bear to

meet his eyes. I could not look into them and read there the deadly pain

and faintness that were rapidly robbing them of their lustre, but that

could not shake their faith in his friend and master. No wonder mine

grew sightless as his own through swimming tears. I who had killed him

could not face his last conscious gaze.



One moment more, and, swaying, tottering first from side to side, poor

Van fell with heavy thud upon the turf. Kneeling, I took his head in my

arms and strove to call back one sign of recognition; but all that was

gone. Van's spirit was ebbing away in some fierce, wild dream: his

glazing eyes were fixed on vacancy; his breath came in quick, convulsive

gasps; great tremors shook his frame, growing every instant more

violent. Suddenly a fiery light shot into his dying eyes. The old high

mettle leaped to vivid life, and then, as though the flag had dropped,

the starting-drum had tapped, Van's fleeting spirit whirled into his

dying race. Lying on his side, his hoofs flew through the air, his

powerful limbs worked back and forth swifter than ever in their swiftest

gallop, his eyes were aflame, his nostrils wide distended, his chest

heaving, and his magnificent machinery running like lightning. Only for

a minute, though,--only for one short, painful minute. It was only a

half-mile dash,--poor old fellow!--only a hopeless struggle against a

rival that never knew defeat. Suddenly all ceased as suddenly as all

began. One stiffening quiver, one long sigh, and my pet and pride was

gone. Old friends were near him even then. "I was with him when he won

his first race at Tucson," said old Sergeant Donnelly, who had ridden to

our aid, "and I knowed then he would die racing."