BY KATHLEEN THOMPSON
About an hour before sunset, Colonel Jerry rode furiously into the post. Her sweating pony was streaked with dust, and the colonel was covered with it from head to foot. Except for the rumpled and brief little corduroy skirt and bloomers, her clothing was an exact, if miniature, copy of her father’s. Her wide felt hat had its regulation cord and tassels, there were gauntlets on her small hands, and gaiters on her small legs. The sleeve of her boyish skirt carried its device, and she wore a cartridge belt, a little pistol, and a sword.
She drew her dancing pony sharply up before the group on the porch, and saluted severely.
“And just in time, too!” said the major, who was also the colonel’s father. He looked at her reproachfully. “We were about to send a company out after you! Leave Baby at the side door and go straight upstairs. When you’re presentable come down, and I’ll introduce you to your Boston uncle and aunt. We’ve been watching for you all afternoon. What kept you, you vagabond?”
The colonel, trying to quiet her nervous horse, wheeled about in a manner that made her aunt dizzy. She answered, jerkily: “Trouble, sir—on the reservation! Whoa, there, pretty! Quiet, girl! It seems that—it seems that some of those hogs of Indians got hold—steady, old girl!—got hold of a keg of whisky—somewhere—and—Peters said—hold still, you fool! You’ll have your oats in a minute!—Peters said—that last night—there wasn’t a man in the camp that wasn’t drunk! You will have to excuse me, sir! She’s pulling my arms out!” And she gave her horse its head.
When the two had flashed around the corner of the house, the major smiled, proudly. “What d’ye think of her?” he said, turning to his brother-in-law.
“Well, for a nine-year-old,” said Dr. Eyre, slowly, “she is certainly a wonder!”
The doctor’s wife, a pretty, precise little woman, looked at her own neat little girl, and sighed, profoundly.
“And this—this!” she said, plaintively, “is poor Amy’s child!”
The major looked a trifle uncomfortable, but his young aid spoke, eagerly: “Every one on the post is proud of the colonel! You see, we’ve brought her up here among us, Mrs. Eyre—taught her everything she knows! You can’t take in her good points at a glance—but she’s as square as any man!”
When the little girl presently joined them, her dark hair had been smoothly brushed, her white frock and buckled slippers were irreproachable. She gave a cool and impassive little cheek to her aunt’s kisses, and then, from her father’s knee, soberly studied her kinspeople.
“How like Amy!” said Mrs. Eyre. “You don’t remember poor dear mamma, do you, Geraldine?”
“I was two,” said the colonel. The aid choked.
“Yes—yes—of course!” said Mrs. Eyre. “And she has had no training, has she, Jim? Do you know, darling, that where aunty and cousin Rose live they would think you were a very funny little girl if they heard you talk that way?”
“What way, dad?” said the colonel, quickly.
“And to hear you say what you said this afternoon,” pursued her aunt, calmly.
“To your horse, she means,” supplemented her father, smiling down at her.
“But that horse can act like the Old Harry,” said the colonel, musingly.
“Speaking of horses,” her uncle said, a little hurriedly, “you’ve never seen mine, have you?”
She gave him an eager smile. “No, sir. You know I’ve never been East. But I’ve read about her. I’m very much interested in that horse.”
“Well, after dinner, suppose you and I have a look at her?”
“What!” The colonel was on her feet; “she’s not here!”
“Yes. Came with us to-day. She’s entered for the Towerton Cup.”
The colonel’s pale little face was flushed with excitement.
“You don’t mean The Lady, Uncle Bob? Not the horse that has taken all those prizes? Here on this post?”
“That’s the very one, colonel,” said the major; “we put her in the Ralston stable.”
“The Lady!” said the colonel, dazedly. “The Lady! To think I shall see that horse!”
“Aunts and uncles are nothing to horses,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald.
“Well,” said the colonel, “you know every one has aunts and uncles.” The aid grew crimson again. “But this is the only racer that I know. And you’ve put her in the Ralston stable?”
“For quiet,” her uncle said. “It excites her to be in a stable with other horses.”
“And one thing more, colonel,” said her father, firmly; “which you may as well understand right now. You’re not ever, under any circumstances, to mount that horse.”
“All right, sir,” said the colonel, regretfully. “If you say so, that goes. But I’d like to try her.”
Her father gave her a sidelong look.
“Now see here, Jerry. The minute I catch you on top of that horse, you can go to bed without rations, and you needn’t wear your colors for a week after. Understand?”
The colonel nodded. Her face was crimson.
“Hang it, you’re not my superior officer, Jim,” said his brother, smiling, “and if I choose to give my niece a ride or so on my own horse it strikes me——”
“Ah! that’s a different matter,” agreed the major, “only I didn’t want the colonel here to think The Lady was an ordinary riding horse.”
The colonel said nothing. She was, at times, an oddly silent child. But she smiled at her uncle, and loved him at once.
It was almost sunset. Long, clear-cut shadows fell across the clean-swept parade. The watering-cart rumbled to and fro, leaving a sweet odor of fresh, wet earth. Lawn-sprinklers began to whirr in the gardens of Officers’ Row. Chattering groups went by, the level red light flashing on white parasols and brass buttons. All of these strollers shouted greetings to the major and the little colonel. Some came up, and were duly presented to the major’s guests. Jerry sat on the steps, her little dark head against the rail, and exchanged banter with a degree of equality that astonished her aunt. The child’s heart was full. She was to be, for several days, privileged by the sight of the great horse—a week would bring the Fourth of July, with its bands and picnic and evening of unclouded joys, fireworks, ice-cream, bonfires. Besides this, the old general, her especial crony, would arrive in a few days for the holiday.
Dinner was late and long. And the after-dinner cigars were interrupted by many reminiscences. By the time the men reached the porch again, the colonel’s patience was sorely strained. She sat waiting for a long half-hour.
“Uncle Bob,” she began at last, when there was a pause, “are you going to see The Lady to-night?”
“By George, that is so,” said her uncle, rousing. “We must have a look at the old girl. Come, kids.”
Just then the breeze brought them the bugle notes.
“Too bad!” said the aid.
“Oh, confound it, there’s taps!” said the colonel, tears of vexation in her eyes. “You’ll have to go without me.”
And before they realized it, she had said her good-nights and gone upstairs.
“H’m!” said her uncle, reflectively.
“She was probably tired and sleepy,” said Mrs. Eyre, gently.
“She'll be out at that stable at five to-morrow,” said the aid.
And, sure enough, Colonel Jerry appeared at the nine-o'clock breakfast the next day radiant from three hours spent in the great horse's stable.
“Well, colonel,” said her uncle, coming in late, “what do you think of The Lady?”
The plain little face was transformed by a wide smile.
“Oh, Uncle Bob! I never saw such a horse! Baron let me lead her down to water! She's the most beautiful horse I ever saw!”
“You'll be disobeying your father,” he said, smiling, “and running off some day on The Lady's back.” She glanced down at her little sleeve, where the device of a colonel was exquisitely embroidered.
“We'd do a good deal not to have that taken off our sleeve, wouldn't we?” said her father.
“Most anything,” she answered, with her flashing smile.
Her own little horse was sick, but she and Rose rode the big carriage horses every day, and Jerry did her best to entertain this rather difficult guest. The two children found enough in common to spend the days pleasantly. Rose developed a profound respect for her wild little cousin, and Jerry grew to enjoy Rose's company—even though Rose could not obey orders, and held bugle-calls in contempt. Both children, as well as all the others on the post, were planning for the Fourth of July. All their money went for fireworks, they shouted the national songs, they cheered the band that practiced nightly before the house.
The third of July broke hot and cloudless. By nine o’clock, the piazza rail burned one’s fingers, and as the hours went by the heat shut down over the earth like a blanket. A heavy haze hung over the meadows, and lines of heat dazzled up from the far, blue mountains. Jerry, coming out from an hour’s enforced practice on her violin, stretched luxuriously in the heat. The post seemed deserted. The heat beat steadily down; there seemed to be no shadow anywhere. Locusts hummed loudly. Jerry knew that her father and uncle had gone to Hayestown to meet the general. They would be back to a late lunch at three. She strolled around to the stable.
Henry, polishing harness, beamed upon her, and wiped his forehead.
“Git me a fur coat an’ build up the fire,” said he, grinning.
“Shame on you!” said the colonel, plunging her bared arms deep into the trough. “Say, Henry, do you know if my aunt and cousin went with dad and Uncle Bob?”
“Why,” said Henry, with a troubled look, “your aunt and cousin went riding! Full an hour ago! Yes, sir, they left about eleven o’clock. They says they was going to get back about half-past two.”
“Idiots!” said the colonel, contemptuously. “Riding! A day like this! Where’d they go?”
“They says they’d go as far as Holly Hill, colonel, and then have their meal at the spring, an’ then go right over Baldy, and home!”
“Crazy! Climbin’ the hill in this heat!” She looked about the clean, wide stable. “What horses did you give ’em?”
Henry looked very uncomfortable.
“I thought you knew, colonel. I give your aunt Sixpence—he’s up to her weight. But Miss Rose says she was to ride your horse.”
The colonel whirled about, her eyes flashing. “Rose said—my horse! You don’t mean BABY?”
“That’s what she says.”
Jerry turned white.
“But—my goodness! Baby’s sick! The vet said she wasn’t to be ridden!”
“I told Miss Rose I didn’t think the horse was up to it,” said Henry, aggrievedly. “I says to ask you.”
“You fool—you!” said the colonel, blazing. She reached for an old cap, and snatched a whip.
“Give me any horse!” she commanded, pulling down her own saddle. “I’ll follow them! They’ll be at the spring. I’ll bring them home through the woods.”
“Why, there you are, colonel! There aint a horse on this place. It was so hot yesterday that we turned them all out. They’re two miles away, in long meadow. You can’t get a horse on this post.”
Baffled, the child dropped the saddle. She leaned against the door-post, her swimming eyes looking across the baking earth. “It’ll kill Baby, Henry,” she whispered, with trembling lips.
No one was about. Above the Ralston stable some little boys had made a fire in the shade. Jerry clinched her hands in agony above her heart. Then she picked up her saddle, and went resolutely along the path.
“Where are you going, colonel, dear?” called Henry.
She did not answer.
“Oh—Baby! Baby!” she was sobbing as she ran; “I can’t let them kill you! I’ve got to disobey orders!”
The carriage, with the three men in it, was met by the news. A mile from the post a little boy shouted that the Ralston stable, with the wonderful mare inside, was burned to the ground. The old general, bouncing out uncomfortably, kept up a running fire of sympathetic ejaculation. The major, urging on the big grays, freely used his strongest language. But his brother did not speak.
Sweating, dust-covered, panting, the horses tore past Officers’ Row, and stopped at the ruins of what had been the stable. A few fallen beams still smoked sullenly, the sickening odor of wet wood filled the air. A group of men and boys in their shirt-sleeves stood near. At the sound of the wheels, Baron, his face streaked with soot and perspiration, came toward them. “I was off duty, sir!” he said, hoarsely. “I was getting my dinner. We done all we could! We had the hose here in ten minutes, but the fire was too big.”
His master nodded. After a moment he asked: “She was loose?”
“Yes, sir. She must have suffocated. She didn’t struggle——”
“No? Well, I’m glad—of that.” Her owner walked about the ruins. The other men were silent. Finally the major said: “I can’t tell you, old man, how sorry I am!”
“Well, no help for it, Jim. I know you are! Go clean up, Baron, then come talk to me. Shall we go up to the house?”
On the way, he said, sombrely: “I wouldn’t have taken any money for that mare!”
Just at this moment the mare came into the yard, with the weary little colonel astride her. The Lady was tired, her satin flanks were flecked with white, but she knew her master, and whinnied as she came up to him. At the sound, he turned as if shot, and a moment later a shout from both men cut short the colonel’s stammered remarks. Her father lifted her down.
“It takes the colonel, every time!” said he. “What lucky star made you—this particular afternoon!—well, she’s saved your horse for you, Bob.”
“We’ll have to promote you,” said the general, to whom the tired child was clinging.
Her uncle, turning for the first time from the horse, spoke, solemnly: “You saved her, didn’t you? I won’t forget this! You’ll have the finest Spanish saddle that can be made, for this!”
“You can go right on breaking rules at this rate!” said her father, his arm about her. “And now run up and get dressed. You can tell us about it later.”
“I’ll go up, too,” said the general.
“Go right ahead, sir. We’ll go to the stable for a few minutes and make fresh arrangements for The Lady.”
When they at last went out to the long-delayed dinner, the high back chair at the foot of the table found no occupant.
“Late, as usual,” said the major. “Lena,” he added, “go and tell the colonel that dinner is ready.”
“Oh, if you please, major, she’s gone to bed. She come upstairs more than an hour ago. She took her bath, sir, and went right to bed. I ast her did she feel sick, and she says no, but that them was your orders. She wouldn’t let Nora bring her up no tea.” Lena looked reproachful.
“And she cried awfully,” said Rose.
“She never let a tear out of her until I shut the door, Miss Rose,” said Lena, firmly; “and she ast me to put out a dress with a plain sleeve for to-morrow. She shut the windows down so’s she shouldn’t hear the band, but she never cried none.”
The aid winced. The general cleared his throat.
“Well, she’s your child, Fitzgerald. But I think I’ll issue a few orders in this matter myself.”
“You’re my superior officer, sir,” said the major, eagerly.