of them—­for you know he would, BB.’  The sergeant said, ’He laid out three of them, sir, and here’s the bones to show for it.’  ‘He’s a grand horse,’ said BB; ’he’s the grandest horse that ever was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison, and shall protect it the rest of his life—­he’s yours for a kiss!’ He got it, along with a passion of delight, and he said, ’You are feeling better now, little Spaniard—­do you think you could blow the advance?’ She put up the bugle to do it, but he said wait a minute first.  Then he and the sergeant set her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not whimpering; then we took up the march for home, and that’s the end of the tale; and I’m her horse.  Isn’t she a brick, Shekels?

“Brick?  She’s more than a brick, more than a thousand bricks—­ she’s a reptile!”

“It’s a compliment out of your heart, Shekels.  God bless you for it!”

CHAPTER X—­GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS

“Too much company for her, Marse Tom.  Betwixt you, and Shekels, the Colonel’s wife, and the Cid—­”

“The Cid?  Oh, I remember—­the raven.”

“—­and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the baby coyotes, and Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus and her kittens—­hang these names she gives the creatures, they warp my jaw—­and Potter:  you—­all sitting around in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire time, it’s a wonder to me she comes along as well as she does.  She—­”

“You want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!”

“Marse Tom, you know better.  It’s too much company.  And then the idea of her receiving reports all the time from her officers, and acting upon them, and giving orders, the same as if she was well!  It ain’t good for her, and the surgeon don’t like it, and tried to persuade her not to and couldn’t; and when he ordered her, she was that outraged and indignant, and was very severe on him, and accused him of insubordination, and said it didn’t become him to give orders to an officer of her rank.  Well, he saw he had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put together, so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.  Doctors don’t know much, and that’s a fact.  She’s too much interested in things--she ought to rest more.  She’s all the time sending messages to BB, and to soldiers and Injuns and whatnot, and to the animals.”

“To the animals?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who carries them?”

“Sometimes Potter, but mostly it’s Shekels.”

“Now come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe as that?”

“But it ain’t make-believe, Marse Tom.  She does send them.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt that part of it.”

“Do you doubt they get them, sir?”

“Certainly.  Don’t you?”

“No, sir.  Animals talk to one another.  I know it perfectly well, Marse Tom, and I ain’t saying it by guess.”