started on a fast run. Hal was in another direction, but
when he heard the report of the rifle and saw the cat running, he
started after it with terrific speed and struck it just as the cat fell,
and then the two rolled over and over together.

He got up and stood by Faye and Lieutenant Lomax while they examined the
cat, and if there was anything wrong with him it was not noticed. But
when they turned to come to the post, dragging the dead cat after them,
Faye heard a peculiar sound, and looking back saw dear Hal on the ground
in a fit much like vertigo. He talked to him and petted him, thinking he
would soon be over it--and the plucky dog did get up and try to follow,
but went down again and for the last time The swift run and excitement
caused by encountering an animal wholly different from anything he had
ever seen before was too great a strain upon the weak heart.

Before coming to the house Faye had ordered a detail out to bury him,
with instructions to cover the grave with pieces of glass to keep the
wolves away. The skin and head of the cat, which was really a lynx, are
being prepared for a rug, but I do not see how I can have the thing in
the house, although the black spots and stripes with the white make the
fur very beautiful. The ball passed straight through the body.

The loneliness of the house is awful, and at night I imagine that I hear
him outside whining to come in. Many a cold night have I been up two and
three times to straighten his bed and cover him up. His bed was the skin
of a young buffalo, and he knew just when it was smooth and nice, and
then he would almost throw himself down, with a sigh of perfect content.
If I did not cover him at once, he would get up and drop down again,
and there he would stay hours at a time with the fur underneath and
over him, with just his nose sticking out. He suffered keenly from the
intense cold here because his hair was so short and fine. And then he
was just from the South, too, where he was too warm most of the time.

It makes me utterly wretched to think of the long year he was away from
us at Baton Rouge. But what could we have done? We could not have had
him with us, in the very heart of New Orleans, for he had already been
stolen from us at Jackson Barracks, a military post!

With him passed the very last of his blood, a breed of greyhounds that
was known in Texas, Kansas, and Colorado as wonderful hunters, also
remarkable for their pluck and beauty of