ed to ride the wooden horse than to any other occupation, who was a
bit of a ventriloquist. Among other feats he made Fifine's cat talk, and
tell about Willinawaugh with "him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly
mouf," to the great relish of his comrades (who resented the fact that
the Indians, exceedingly vain of their own personal appearance,[12] were
accustomed to speak of the paleface as the "ugly white people"); to the
intense, shrieking delight of the elder children; and to the amazement
of Fifine, who could not understand afterward why the _douce mignonne_
would not talk to her. When the pretended conversation of the cat grew
funnily profane, Captain Demere only called out "Time's up," from the
back of the hall, and the fellow came sheepishly down from the platform,
holding the borrowed kitty by the nape of the neck, and half the
audience did not catch the funny swear that he attributed to the
exemplary feline. Then there was a shadow-pantomime, where immaterial
roisterers "played Injun," and went through the horrid details of
scalping and murders, with grotesque concomitant circumstances,--such as
the terrifying ricochet effects on an unsophisticated red-man of riving
a buzz-wig from the head of his victim in lieu of a real scalp, and the
consequent sudden exchange of the characters of pursued and
pursuer,--all of which, oddly enough, the people who stood in imminent
danger of a horrible fate thought very funny indeed.

One evening the commandant devised a new plan to pass the time. All were
summoned to the parade ground to share in an entertainment designated as
"Songs of all nations."

"An' I could find it in my stommick to wish it was to share in 'Soups of
all nations,'" said Corporal O'Flynn to a comrade. For it seemed that
the quartermaster-sergeant had docked his rations by an ounce or two, a
difference that made itself noted in so slender a dole and a
convalescent's appetite.

It was a night long to be remembered. The great coils of Scorpio seemed
covered with scintillating scales, so brilliant were the stars. No cloud
was in the sky, unless one might so call that seeming glittering vapor,
the resplendent nebulose clusters of the Galaxy. A wind was moving
through the upper atmosphere, for the air was fresh and cool, but below
was the soft, sweet stillness of the summer night, full of fragrant
odors from the woods, the sound of the swift-flowing river, the outpour
of the melody of a mocking-bird that had