48 WHIP AND SPUR. 



was a banter or a compliment, it would have 

 been impossible for any man who properly es- 

 teemed himself and his riding to stop to con- 

 sider. Turned toward the fence, the Fuchs, 

 checking his speed, seemed to creep toward it, 

 as a cat would, making it very uncertain what 

 he proposed; but as he came nearer to it, that 

 willingness to leap that an accustomed rider will 

 always recognize communicated itself to me, and, 

 with perfect judgment, but with a force and 

 spirit I had never hoped to meet in a horse of 

 this world, he carried me over the enormous 

 height, and landed like a deer, among the stumps 

 and brush on the other side, and trotted gayly 

 away, athlete-like again, happier and prouder 

 than ever horse was before. 



Sitting that evening at my tent door, opposite 

 the spring, bragging, as the custom is, over the 

 new purchase, it occurred to me that that stream of 

 water and that bit of horse-flesh had some quali- 

 ties alike ; so I christened the latter " Roubie 

 d'Eaux," which was soon translated and short- 

 ened to "Kuby," — a name henceforth familiar 

 throughout the regiment. 



