It is five months. Or is it six? My troubles have clouded
my memory. I have been all over this land, from end to end, and
now I am back again since day before yesterday, to that city which we
passed through, that last day of our long journey, and which is near
her country home. I am a tottering ruin and my eyes are dim, but
I recognized it. If she could see me she would know me and sound
my call. I wish I could hear it once more; it would revive me,
it would bring back her face and the mountains and the free life, and
I would come—if I were dying I would come! She would not
know me, looking as I do, but she would know me by my star.
But she will never see me, for they do not let me out of this shabby
stable—a foul and miserable place, with most two wrecks like myself
for company.
How many times have I changed hands? I think it is twelve times—I
cannot remember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time
I got a harder master. They have been cruel, every one; they have
worked me night and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they
have fed me ill, and some days not at all. And so I am but bones,
now, with a rough and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken
body—that skin which was once so glossy, that skin which she loved
to stroke with her hand. I was the pride of the mountains and
the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow and despised. These piteous
wrecks that are my comrades here say we have reached the bottom of the
scale, the final humiliation; they say that when a horse is no longer
worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed to him, they sell him
to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make sport for the people
and perish for their pleasure.
To die—that does not disturb me; we of the service never care
for death. But if I could see her once more! if I could hear her
bugle sing again and say, “It is I, Soldier—come!”
