“In two years more I’d managed to scratch together a couple of hundred dollars somehow, and then I went to the colonel and up and told him the whole story, and asked him to send the money to old Wheeler for me. I’d heard the old man say a dozen times that he would sell Sonny for that sum rather than take the risk of being killed while breaking him. And he hadn’t broken him, either; I’d done it. That was three years ago. The money went all right and I’ve got the receipt all safe. Old Wheeler’s satisfied, and so am I. I’ve been with the regiment ever since. We’ve had some pretty hot times with the Ingins out there; you know that as well as I do, but I’ve a notion we’re in for a hotter one right here than we’ve seen yet. Sonny has helped me out of many a tight place, and we’ve seen some mighty tough times together, but I could count on him every time, and I believe he’d lay down his life for me in a minute. I expect he will save it for me yet. I’d have been a fine one to sit in that boat and watch him go to the bottom, wouldn’t I?” Bob little dreamed how soon Sonny would repay his devotion. Who would wish to picture the horrors of a battlefield, with its scream of shot, its burst of shell, and the cries of the wounded? Certainly not I, but I cannot complete my story of Sonny without touching the horrible scene. A charge had been made and many a riderless horse was rushing aimlessly about; for when the trusting creatures no longer felt the guiding hand nor heard the encouraging voice of their masters, chaos seemed indeed to have come again. No one would have recognized in the terrified animals the well-trained creatures which had gathered for the charge. Among them was Sonny, rushing he knew not whither. Poor Sonny! No longer clean and shining, but splashed with mud, blackened with powder, and bleeding from a ghastly wound in his shoulder. From some instinct of self-preservation the horses ran to the rear, and he ran with them. But he had not gone far when he was captured by a trooper whose horse had been shot under him, and a moment later he was dashing up the hill and into the thickest of the fight. Wounds were unnoticed and terror disregarded; no one had time to think of a horse when human beings were struggling to destroy each other in order to settle a disputed question and free a down-trodden race. Poor Sonny! No one could look into the horse’s mind and there see the anguish he was suffering for the loss of the master whom he had loved and served so faithfully for nine years, and whom he would willingly have followed to his death, if necessary. Whatever trials he had before encountered; whatever suffering he had been compelled to endure, his trusted master had been there to help him bear them. Now in the midst of battle he was as much alone as though he had been abandoned in a wilderness.