ikely to play out on our forced marches, and, anyway, would be no
mortal use to us. His reply was characteristic:

"Curly goes if I go, sir; but any time you can tell me you find him a
nuisance, I'll shoot him myself. I've had him four years, had him out
all through Victoria's raid of the Gila, and he's a safer night guard
than any ten men you can string around camp: nothing can approach he
won't nail or tell you of. With Curly, a night-camp surprise is
impossible."

Whatever cross Curly represented was a mystery. Two-thirds the height
and weight of a mastiff, he had the broad narrow pointed muzzle of a
bear, and a shaggy reddish-black coat that further heightened his
resemblance to a cinnamon, with great gray eyes precisely the color of
his master's, and as fierce. Whichever character was formed on that of
the other I never learned--the man's on the dog's, or the dog's on the
man's. Certain it is that not even the luckiest chance could have
brought together man and beast so nearly identical in all their traits.
Both were honest, almost to a fault. Neither possessed any vice I ever
could discover. Each was wholly happy only when in battle, the more
desperate the encounter the happier they. Neither ever actually forced
a quarrel, or failed to get in the way of one when there was the least
color of an attempt to fasten one on them. And yet both were always
considerate of any weaker than themselves, and quick to go to their
defence. Many a time have I seen old Curly seize and throttle a big
dog he caught rending a little one--as I have seen George leap to the
aid of the defenceless. Each weighed carefully his kind, and found
most wanting in something requisite to the winning of his confidence;
and such as they did admit to familiar intimacy, man or beast, were the
salt of their kind.

On the train, south-bound for San Antonio, I learned something of
Thornton's history. The son of a judge of Peoria, Ill., he had until
fifteen the advantage of the schools of his city. Then, possessed with
a longing for a life of adventure in the West, he ran away from home,
worked in various places at various tasks, until, at sixteen (in 1887)
he had made his way to Socorro. Arrived there, he attached himself to
a small party of prospectors going out into the Black Range, into a
region then wild and hostile as Boone found Kentucky. And there for
the last five years he had dwelt, ranging through the Datils and the
Mogallons