Episode 1

I am Buffalo Bill's horse.I have spent my life under his saddle -with him in it,too,and he is good for two hundred pounds,without his clothes;and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on.He is over six feet,is young,hasn't an ounce of waste flesh,is straight,graceful,springy in his motions,quick as a cat,and has a handsome face,and black hair dangling down on his shoulders,and is beautiful to look at;and nobody is braver than he is,and nobody is stronger,except myself.Yes,a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins,on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder,chasing a hostile trail,with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch.Yes,he is a sight to look at then -and I'm part of it myself.

I am his favorite horse,out of dozens.Big as he is,I have carried him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout;and I am good for fifty,day in and day out,and all the time.I am not large,but I am built on a business basis.I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army,and there's not a gorge,nor a pass,nor a valley,nor a fort,nor a trading post,nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well as we know the bugle-calls.He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier,and it makes us very important.In such a position as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the place.I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome,everybody says,and the best-mannered.It may be so,it is not for me to say;modesty is the best policy,I think.Buffalo Bill taught me the most of what I know,my mother taught me much,and Itaught myself the rest.Lay a row of moccasins before me -Pawnee,Sioux,Shoshone,Cheyenne,Blackfoot,and as many other tribes as you please -and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.Name it in horse-talk,and could do it in American if I had speech.

I know some of the Indian signs -the signs they make with their hands,and by signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.

Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my teeth;and I've done it,too;at least I've dragged HIM out of the battle when he was wounded.And not just once,but twice.Yes,I know a lot of things.I remember forms,and gaits,and faces;and you can't disguise a person that's done me a kindness so that I won't know him thereafter wherever I find him.

I know the art of searching for a trail,and I know the stale track from the fresh.I can keep a trail all by myself,with Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle;ask him -he will tell you so.Many a time,when he has ridden all night,he has said to me at dawn,"Take the watch,Boy;if the trail freshens,call me."Then he goes to sleep.He knows he can trust me,because I have a reputation.A scout horse that has a reputation does not play with it.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***