care of a little maid nine years old? If I could have her it would
be another matter, for I know all about children, and they adore
me. Buffalo Bill will tell you so himself.

I have some of this news from over-hearing the garrison-gossip, the
rest of it I got from Potter, the General's dog. Potter is the
great Dane. He is privileged, all over the post, like Shekels, the
Seventh Cavalry's dog, and visits everybody's quarters and picks up
everything that is going, in the way of news. Potter has no
imagination, and no great deal of culture, perhaps, but he has a
historical mind and a good memory, and so he is the person I depend
upon mainly to post me up when I get back from a scout. That is,
if Shekels is out on depredation and I can't get hold of him.



CHAPTER II--LETTER FROM ROUEN--TO GENERAL ALISON



My dear Brother-in-Law,--Please let me write again in Spanish, I
cannot trust my English, and I am aware, from what your brother
used to say, that army officers educated at the Military Academy of
the United States are taught our tongue. It is as I told you in my
other letter: both my poor sister and her husband, when they found
they could not recover, expressed the wish that you should have
their little Catherine--as knowing that you would presently be
retired from the army--rather than that she should remain with me,
who am broken in health, or go to your mother in California, whose
health is also frail.