man, finding that he must go, went. He wet his whistle several times
before starting, repeated the dose several times before he reached the
Court House, and about the time he supposed he was wanted, he mounted
"Bonny Doon," and started, full chisel, up the steps, through the entry,
and into the crowded Court room, just in the nick of time.

"Robert Maguire! Robert Maguire! Robert----"

"Be the help o' Moses, _I'm here!_" roared the captain, in response to
the crier.

And sure enough, he wasn't anywhere else! There he sat, stiff, and
formal as a bronze statue of some renowned military chieftain, on a
pot-metal war steed. Some laughed, others stepped out of the way of the
mare's heels, judge and jury "riz," some of the oldest sinners in law
practice looked quite "skeery," doubtless taking the old captain and his
black charger for quite a different individual! It was some time before
order and decorum were restored, as it was much easier for the judge to
_order_ Captain Maguire to be arrested for his freak, than to do it,
"Bonny Doon" not being disposed to let any man approach her head or
heels. They shut the captain up, finally, for contempt of court, and
fined him twenty dollars, but he escaped the disagreeable attitude of
sustaining the suit of an enemy. At another time, the captain, being on
a _time_, dashed into a meeting-house, running in at one door, and slap
bang out at the other! This feat of Camanche horsemanship rather alarmed
the whole congregation, and cost the captain five twenties! Riding into
bar rooms and stores was a common performance of "Bonny Doon" and her
master; and he had even gone so far as to run the mare up two entire
flights of stairs of the principal hotel, dashing into a room where "a
native" was shivering in bed with the fever and ague; but the noise and
sudden appearance of a man and horse in such high latitudes effected a
permanent and speedy cure; the fright like to have destroyed the
sufferer's crop of hair, but the "a-gy" was skeered clean out of his
emaciated body.

After a variety of adventures by flood and field, of hair-breadth
'scapes, and eccentricities of man and beast, they parted! "Bonny Doon"
being about the only living spectator of her master's end. This tragic
denouement came about one cold, stormy and snowy night, when few men,
and as few beasts, would willingly or without pressing occasion, expose
themselves to the pitiless storm. The old captain had been in town all
da