"I guess you can't," rejoined Black Jack. "Look at that!"
Such tales as these are current coin out West, and the number of them in circulation is countless. How far they are true no one can pretend to say, nor does it matter much.
We sought the blankets early, and were up again before it was light; indeed, by the time that
"Night was flung off like a mourning suit,
Worn for a husband or some other brute,"
we had almost finished breakfast.
The gray was worse to-day. As we proceeded he grew weaker and weaker, and less and less disposed to follow, until, ten miles from Smith's Wells, we were obliged to leave him. The halter was removed, and the tried, but now tired out servant, that had been our companion on many a long trip, was left alone in the midst of an arid plain. The breeze had subsided; the afternoon was growing mellow and still; on the summit of a rise, with the blue sky and sun behind him, the old nag stood still, in mid trail, looking stupidly after us as we receded. Without changing his position, he turned his head from side to side, to gaze around him at the desert once. Then, seeming to have realised that we had deserted him, and in that one brief survey of the ground to have recognised that his position was hopeless, his glance followed us again. There was something touching in the immovability with which he accepted the situation.
It was easy to imagine a world of pathos in his heavy attitude and lowered crest, to picture immeasurable reproach in his great swimming eyes—eyes that had never looked viciously at any one. Poor beast! He could not even ask: "Did I ever abandon you when you were sick?" Again and again I looked back. The wheel-ruts and trail led my glance straight to him. The black shadow cast before him on the ground seemed like a thing of evil omen. He looked so forlorn. However simple the illustration may be, there is always a fascination in the old, cruel tale—Deserted. And to desert even a horse in extremity seems cowardly. However, we yet expected to see him again.
"Has the old pillar of salt started after us?" inquired the Colonel prosaically.
"No." Nor did he move as long as we remained in sight.