Brutus, Cow Pony 



only now and then by an occasional skirmish, were 

 growing monotonous and beginning to tell on 

 horses and men, though it could hardly be said to 

 have altered Brutus much, unless the skin was 

 drawn a little tighter over the cowlike hip bones 

 or the eyes burned brighter. 



Troop A had had a hard day, when one evening 

 about dark, dust covered and weary, with five 

 empty saddles and a wounded corporal, it found 

 itself compelled to pitch camp many miles from the 

 main body. There was little sleep that night for 

 horses or men. Signal fires were burning, little 

 patches of flame on the distant hills, and the camp 

 watched them while awake. Hobbled in the 

 horse lines, Brutus heard the words passed along 

 that the Boers had cut them off from the main 

 body and that they were hemmed in. Brutus 

 dozed; it was nothing new to him. He'd been 

 hemmed in before, once by United States troops, 

 when he belonged to a Sioux, and again by Indians 

 when he was rounding up cattle for the *'XX." 

 It rather annoyed him, the silly chatter the troop 

 horses kept up, especially that of the dapple gray. 

 The gray was speaking. 



"It's all rot, you know, knocking us about like 

 this. Government should know better." 



"Right-o, my beauty," chimed in the sergeant- 

 137 



