'Xenophon,' he said. 'The March of the Ten Thousand. Of course, we're only twelve men, but when I read Xenophon I can imagine that we're ten thousand.' Augustus had quietly saddled up--if there was a pursuit, he wanted to be part of it.
Several other rangers began to stir themselves, pulling on their boots and looking to their guns.
'Here, stop that!' Captain Scull said suddenly, looking up from his book. 'I won't send you off to chase a phantom, in country this spare. Just because Mr. Call didn't starve in it on his last visit doesn't mean he couldn't starve tomorrow--andthe rest of you too.
'There's always a first time, they say,' he added.
'I expect it was some smart Greek said that, or else our own Papa Franklin.' Then he paused and smiled benignly at his confused and ragged men.
'Ever hear Greek read, boys?' he asked.
'It's a fine old language--the language of Homer and Thucydides, not to mention Xenophon, who's our author today. I've a fair amount of Greek still in my head. I'll read to you, if you like, about the ten thousand men who marched home in defeat.' Nobody said yes, and nobody said no. The men just stood where they were, or sat if they had not yet risen. Deets put a few more sticks on the fire.
'That's fine, the ayes have it,' Captain Scull said.
He looked around with a grin, and then, sitting on the sack of potatoes, and squinting in order to see the small print of his pocket Xenophon, he read to the troop in Greek.
'That was worse than listening to a bunch of Comanches gobble at one another,' Long Bill said, once the reading was over and the troop once again on the move.
'I'd rather listen to pigs squeal than to hear goings-on like that,' Ikey Ripple added.
Augustus had disliked the reading as much as anyone, but the fact that Long Bill had spoken out against it rubbed him the wrong way.
'That was Greek,' he reminded them haughtily. 'Everybody ought to hear Greek now and then, and Latin too. I could listen all day to someone read Latin.' Call knew that Augustus claimed some knowledge of Latin, but he had never been convinced by the claim.
'I doubt you know a ^w of either language,' Call said. 'You didn't understand that reading and neither did anybody else.' Unlike the rangers, Famous Shoes had been mightily impressed by the Captain's reading. He himself could speak several dialects and follow the track of any living animal; but Captain Scull had followed an even harder and more elusive track: the tiny, intricate track that ran across the pages of the book. That Big Horse Scull could follow a little track through page after page of a book and turn what he saw into sound was a feat that never ceased to amaze the Kickapoo.
'That might be the way a god talks,' he commented.
'Nope, it was just some old Greek fellow who lost a war and had to tramp back home with his ten thousand men,' Augustus said.
'That's a lot of men,' Call said. 'I wonder how many fought on the side that won.' 'Why would you care, Woodrow? You didn't even like hearing Greek,' Augustus pointed out.
'No,' Call said, 'but I can still wonder about that war.'
Kicking Wolf was amused by the carelessness of Big Horse Scull, who put three men at a time to guard the rangers' horses and the two pack mules, but did not bother with guards for the Buffalo Horse. The men on guard were rotated at short intervals, too--yet Scull did not seem to think the Buffalo Horse needed watching.
'He does not think anyone would try to steal the Buffalo Horse,' Kicking Wolf told Three Birds, after they had watched the rangers and their horses for three nights.
'Scull is careless,' he added.
Three Birds, for once, had a thought he didn't want to keep inside himself.
'Big Horse is right,' Three Birds said. He pointed upward to the heavens, which were filled with bright stars.
'There are as many men as there are stars,' Three Birds said. 'They are not all here, but somewhere in the world there are that many men.' 'What are you talking about?' Kicking Wolf said.
Three Birds pointed to the North Star, a star much brighter than the little sprinkle of stars around it.
'Only one star shines to show where the north is,' Three Birds said. 'Only one star, of all the stars, shines for the north.' Kicking Wolf was thinking it was pleasanter when Three Birds didn't try to speak his thoughts, but he tried to listen politely to Three Birds' harmless ^ws about the stars.
'You are like the North Star,' Three Birds said. 'Only you of all the men in the world could steal the Buffalo Horse. That horse might be a witch--some say that it can fly. It might turn and eat you, when you go up to it. Yet you are such a thief that you are going to steal it anyway.
'Big Horse doesn't know that the North Star has come to take his horse,' he added.
'If he knew, he would be more careful.' On the fourth night, after studying the situation well, Kicking Wolf decided it was time to approach the Buffalo Horse. The weather conditions were good: there was a three-quarter moon, and the brightness of the stars was dimmed just enough by scudding, fast-moving clouds. Kicking Wolf could see all he needed to see. He had carefully prepared himself by fasting, his bowels were empty, and he had rubbed sage all over his body. Scull even left a halter on the Buffalo Horse.
Once Kicking Wolf had reassured the big horse with his touch and his stroking, all he would have to do would be to take the halter and quietly lead the Buffalo Horse away.
As he was easing along the ground on his belly, so that the lazy guards wouldn't see him, Kicking Wolf got a big shock: suddenly the Buffalo Horse raised its ear, turned its head, and looked right at him. Kicking Wolf was close enough then that he could see the horse's breath making little white clouds in the cold night.
