The black would tolerate no one but me. With me he established as close a brotherhood as can be between man and beast. He gave me to understand, by playful protest, that it was only by his good pleasure that I was permitted on his back, and that he endured saddle and bridle; as to spur or whip, they were not thought of by either. He did not obey, but consented. I exercised no control. We were of one mind. We became a Centaur. I loved that horse as I have loved nothing else yet, except the other personages with whom and for whom he acted in this history.
I named him Don Fulano.
I had put my mine into him. He represented to me the whole visible, tangible result of two long, workaday years, dragged out in that dreary spot among the Pikes, with nothing in view except barren hill-sides ravaged by mines, and the unbeautiful shanties of miners as rough as the landscape.
Don Fulano, a horse that would not sell, was my profit for the sternest and roughest work of my life! I looked at him, and looked at the mine, that pile of pretty pebbles, that pile of bogus ore, and I did not regret my bargain. I never have regretted it. “My kingdom for a horse,”—so much of a kingdom as I had, I had given.
But was that all I had gained,—an unsalable horse for two years’ work? All,—unless, perhaps, I conclude to calculate the incalculable; unless I estimate certain moral results I had grasped, and have succeeded in keeping; unless I determine to value patience, purpose, and pluck by dollars and cents. However, I have said enough of myself, and my share in the preparations for the work of my story.
Retire, then, Richard Wade, and enter the real hero of the tale.
CHAPTER IV.
JOHN BRENT.
A man who does not love luxury is merely an incomplete man, or, if he prefers, an ignoramus. A man who cannot dispense with luxury, and who does not love hard fare, hard bed, hard travel, and all manner of robust, vigorous, tense work, is a weakling and a soft. Sybaris is a pretty town, rose-leaves are a delicate mattrass, Lydian measures are dulcet to soul and body: also, the wilderness is “no mean city”; hemlock or heather for couch, brocken for curtain, are not cruelty; prairie gales are a brave lullaby for adults.
Simple furniture and simple fare a campaigner needs for the plains,—for chamber furniture, a pair of blankets; for kitchen furniture, a frying-pan and a coffee-pot; for table furniture, a tin mug and his bowie-knife: Sybaris adds a tin plate, a spoon, and even a fork. The list of provisions is as short,—pork, flour, and coffee; that is all, unless Sybaris should indulge in a modicum of tea, a dose or two of sugar, and a vial of vinegar for holidays.