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."
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 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!
"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.