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?”