vix. 31 



not leave her alive. I have had few harder 

 duties than to march that morning. Four days 

 after, De Grandele sent a message to me at our 

 station near Rolla, that he was coming on nice- 

 ly, and hoped to be in at nightfall. " Vixen 

 seems to be better and stronger." At nightfall 

 they came, the poor old creature stepping slowly 

 and timidly over the rough road, all the old 

 fire and force gone out of her, and with only a 

 feeble whinny as she saw me walking to meet 

 her. We built for her the best quarters we 

 could under the mountain-side, and spread her 

 a soft bed of leaves. There was now hope that 

 she would recover sufficiently to be sent to St. 

 Louis to be nursed. 



That night, an infernal brute of a troop horse 

 that had already killed Ludlow's charger, led by 

 some fiendish spirit, broke into Vixen's enclosure, 

 and with one kick laid open her hock joint. 



In vain they told me that she was incurable. 

 I could not let her die now, when she -was just 

 restored to me; and I forced from De Grandele 

 the confession that she might be slung up and 



