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A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain
page 2 of 67 (02%)
fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of
the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well
as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of
the Frontier, and it makes us very important. In such a position
as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family
and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the
place. I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome,
everybody says, and the best-mannered. It may be so, it is not for
me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think. Buffalo Bill
taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I
taught myself the rest. Lay a row of moccasins before me--Pawnee,
Sioux, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as
you please--and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by
the make of it. Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American
if I had speech.

I know some of the Indian signs--the signs they make with their
hands, and by signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.
Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line
of fire with my teeth; and I've done it, too; at least I've dragged
HIM out of the battle when he was wounded. And not just once, but
twice. Yes, I know a lot of things. I remember forms, and gaits,
and faces; and you can't disguise a person that's done me a
kindness so that I won't know him thereafter wherever I find him.
I know the art of searching for a trail, and I know the stale track
from the fresh. I can keep a trail all by myself, with Buffalo
Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him--he will tell you so. Many a
time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at dawn,
"Take the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me." Then he
goes to sleep. He knows he can trust me, because I have a
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