Whip and Spur

I have seen crack race-horses in my time, but I never saw more artistic riding nor more capital running than that summer morning on the River Road at Helena, just as the sun began to gild the muddy Mississippi. The satisfaction of this conquest, and the activity with which new engagements were offered by ambitious lieutenants, who little knew the stuff my man and horse were made of, kept off my fever for some weeks; but I steadily declined all opportunity of racing with horses outside of our command, for I had been reared in a school of Puritan severity, and had never quite overcome my convictions against the public turf. A corporal of an “Injeanny regement” took occasion to crow lustily—so I heard—because “one of them French coveys” was afraid to run him a quarter for five dollars. It appeared that a cleanly European was always supposed by this gentry to be French; and in the army at large I was better known by the company I kept than by my New England characteristics.

Naturally, Ike thought that, while Ruby was engaged in this more legitimate occupation, he ought not to be ridden for mere pleasure; and it was only when a visitor was to be entertained, or when I went out on plea of duty, that I could steal an opportunity to leap him; but he took one fence that fairly did him credit. It was a snake fence measuring four feet and two inches, with a deep ditch on each side cut close to the projecting angles of the rails. Ruby carried me over the first ditch into the angle between the rails, then over the fence into the narrow space on the other side, and then over the second ditch into the field. It was the most perfect combination of skill, strength, and judgment that was possible to horse-flesh; and I think Gluckmansklegge, who was with me and had suggested the venture, despaired of ever getting his promotion by any fair means, when we rejoined him by the return leap and rode safely to camp.

Unhappily, even entire satisfaction with one’s horse is powerless to ward off such malaria as that of the camp at Helena, and in due time I fell ill with the fever. The horse was turned over to the care of the quartermaster, and Ike and I came wearily home on sick-leave.

Late in the autumn we returned to St. Louis, where one of the German officers told me that the regiment had joined Davidson’s army at “Pilot K-nopp”; and after the Hun, our new adjutant, arrived from the East, we set out for headquarters, and took command of the cavalry brigade of Davidson’s army.

From November until January we were tossed about from post to post, wearing out our horses, wearying our men, and accomplishing absolutely nothing of value beyond the destruction of an enormous amount of the rough forage, which would otherwise have been used to feed “nags,”—stolen or to be stolen,—and would have thus tended to foster the prevailing vice of the region.

At last we settled down in a pleasant camp at Thomasville,—a good twelve miles away from Davidson,—and were at rest; it was only those near him who suffered from his fitful caprices, and he was now encamped with the infantry.

Pleasant as we found it with our little duty and much sport, I can never look back to Thomasville without sorrow. To say that I had acquired a tenderness for Ruby would not be strictly just; but I felt for him all the respect and admiration and fondness that is possible short of love. Vix had been my heroine, and my only one; but Ruby was my hero, and I depended on him for my duty and my pleasure more than I knew. With his full measure of intelligence he had learned exactly his rôle, and he was always eager, whenever occasion offered, to show the world what a remarkably fine horse I had,—being himself conscious, not only of his unusual virtues, but, no less, of the praise they elicited.

One sunny Southern day, toward the end of January, Davidson had ridden over, with his following, to dine with us; and as we were sitting before our mess-tent, mellow with after-dinner talk of our guns and our dogs and our horses, the General was good enough to remember that he had seen me riding a chestnut that he thought much too finely bred for field work: had I been able to keep him? Then Ruby was discussed, and all his successes were recalled, first by one friend and then by another, until Davidson needed ocular proof of our truthfulness.