came riding up on his big black horse to the very edge
of the bluff.

"You are such a little mite, I nearly forgot to see you," he called,
cheerily. "Your Uncle Esmond wants you right away. Mat Nivers, or
somebody else, sent me to run you down," he added, leaning over to lift
me up to a seat on the horse behind him.

Few handsomer men ever graced a saddle. Big, broad-shouldered, muscular,
yet agile, a head set like a Greek statue, and a face--nobody could ever
make a picture of Jondo's face for me--the curling brown hair, soft as a
girl's, the broad forehead, deep-set blue eyes, heavy dark brow, cheeks
always ruddy through the plain's tan, strong white teeth, firm square
chin, and a smile like sunshine on the gray prairies. Eyes, lips,
teeth--aye, the big heart behind them--all made that smile. No grander
prince of men ever rode the trails or dared the dangers of the untamed
West. I did not know his story for many years. I wish I might never have
known it. But as he began with me, so he ended--brave, beloved old
Jondo!

Down on the parade-ground Beverly Clarenden and Mat Nivers were sitting
with their feet crossed under them, tailor fashion, facing each other
and talking earnestly. Over by the fort, Esmond Clarenden stood under a
big elm-tree. A round little, stout little man he was, whose sturdy
strength and grace of bearing made up for his lack of height. Like a
great green tent the boughs of the elm, just budding into leaf, drooped
over him. A young army officer on a cavalry horse was talking with him
as we came up.

"Run over there to Beverly now. Gail," my uncle said, with a wave of his
hand.

I was always in awe of shoulder-straps, so I scampered away toward the
children. But not until, child-like, I had stared at the three men long
enough to take a child's lasting estimate of things.

I carry still the keen impression of that moment when I took,
unconsciously, the measure of the three: the mounted army man, commander
of the fort, big in his official authority and force; Jondo on his great
black horse, to me the heroic type of chivalric courage; and between the
two, Esmond Clarenden, unmounted, with feet firmly planted, suggesting
nothing heroic, nothing autocratic. And yet, as he stood there,
square-built, solid, certain, he seemed in some dim way to be the real
man of whom the other two were but shadows. It took a quarter of a
century for me to put into words what I learned with one glance that day
in my