“Look here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful.  Be persuasive; don’t fret her; tell her it’s all right, the matter is in my hands, but it isn’t good form to hurry so grave a matter as this.  Explain to her that we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new.  In fact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened in our army, therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and must go cautiously and examine them carefully.  Tell her not to be impatient, it will take me several days, but it will all come out right, and I will come over and report progress as I go along.  Do you get the idea, Dorcas?”

“I don’t know as I do, sir.”

“Well, it’s this.  You see, it won’t ever do for me, a brigadier in the regular army, to preside over that infant court-martial—­there isn’t any precedent for it, don’t you see.  Very well.  I will go on examining authorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out of this scrape by presiding herself.  Do you get it now?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I get it, and it’s good, I’ll go and fix it with her.  Lay down! and stay where you are.”

“Why, what harm is he doing?”

“Oh, it ain’t any harm, but it just vexes me to see him act so.”

“What was he doing?”

“Can’t you see, and him in such a sweat?  He was starting out to spread it all over the post.  Now I reckon you won’t deny, any more, that they go and tell everything they hear, now that you’ve seen it with yo’ own eyes.”

“Well, I don’t like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don’t see how I can consistently stick to my doubts in the face of such overwhelming proof as this dog is furnishing.”

“There, now, you’ve got in yo’ right mind at last!  I wonder you can be so stubborn, Marse Tom.  But you always was, even when you was little.  I’m going now.”

“Look here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment that she ought to enlarge the accused on his parole.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll tell her.  Marse Tom?”

“Well?”

“She can’t get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the time, down in the mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake hands with him and comfort him?  Everybody does.”

“It’s a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will.”

CHAPTER XI—­SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE

“Thorndike, isn’t that Plug you’re riding an assert of the scrap you and Buffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins and his pal a few months back?”

“Yes, this is Mongrel—­and not a half-bad horse, either.”

“I’ve noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate.  Say—­isn’t it a gaudy morning?”

“Right you are!”

“Thorndike, it’s Andalusian! and when that’s said, all’s said.”

“Andalusian and Oregonian, Antonio!  Put it that way, and you have my vote.  Being a native up there, I know.  You being Andalusian-born—­”