【英文原著类】a horse’s tale(马的传说).pdf

A Horse's Tale
A Horse's Tale
By Mark Twain
1
A Horse's Tale
CHAPTER I - SOLDIER BOY -
PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF
I am Buffalo Bill's horse. I have spent my life under his saddle - with
him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes;
and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-
path and has his batteries belted on. He is over six feet, is young, hasn't
an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick
as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his
shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and
nobody is stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is
fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his
rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like
the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad
slouch. Yes, he is a sight to look at then - and I'm part of it myself.
I am his favorite horse, out of dozens. Big as he is, I have carried
him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am
good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time. I am not large, but I
am built on a business basis. I have carried him thousands and thousands
of miles on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge, nor a pass, nor
a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole
sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as
well as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of
the Frontier, and it makes us very important. In such a position as I hold
in the military service one needs to be of good family and possess an
education much above mon to be worthy of the place. I am the
best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome, everybody says, and the
best-mannered. It may be so, it is not for me to say; modesty is the best
policy, I think. Buffalo