“Po—­o—­or Pollymckittrick!” she remarked.

At the sight of that hawk Pollymckittrick had fainted!

The third institution having to do with the house was undoubtedly Redmond.  Redmond was another of the old soldiers who had in their age sought out their beloved General.  Redmond was a sort of all-round man.  He built the fires very early in the morning; and he did your boots and hunting clothes, got out the decoys, plucked the ducks, saw to the shells, fed the dogs, and was always on hand at arrival and departure to lend a helping hand.  He dwelt in a square room in the windmill tower together with a black cat and all the newspapers in the world.  The cat he alternately allowed the most extraordinary liberties or disciplined rigorously.  On the latter occasions he invariably seized the animal and hurled it bodily through the open window.  The cat took the long fall quite calmly, and immediately clambered back up the outside stairway that led to the room.  The newspapers he read, and clipped therefrom items of the most diverse nature to which he deprecatingly invited attention.  Once in so often a strange martial fervour would obsess him.  Then the family, awakened in the early dawn, would groan and turn over, realizing that its rest was for that morning permanently shattered.  The old man had hoisted his colours over the windmill tower, and now in a frenzy of fervour was marching around and around the tower beating the long roll on his drum.  After one such outbreak he would be his ordinary, humble, quiet, obliging, almost deprecating self for another month or so.  The ranch people took it philosophically.

The fourth institution was Nobo.  Nobo was a Japanese woman who bossed the General.  She was a square-built person of forty or so who had also been with the family unknown years.  Her capabilities were undoubted; as also her faith in them.  The hostess depended on her a good deal; and at the same time chafed mildly under her calm assumption that she knew perfectly what the situation demanded.  The General took her domination amusedly.  To be sure nobody was likely to fool much with the General.  His vast good nature had way down beneath it something that on occasion could be stern.  Nobo could and would tell the General what clothes to wear, and when to change them, and such matters; but she never ventured to inhibit the General’s ideas as to going forth in rains, or driving where he everlastingly dod-blistered pleased, or words to that effect, across country in his magnificently rattletrap surrey, although she often looked very anxious.  For she adored the General.  But we all did that.

As though the heavy curtain of fog had been laid upon the land expressly that I might get my first impressions of the ranch in due order, about noon the weather cleared.  Even while we ate lunch, the sun came out.  After the meal we went forth to see what we could see.