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Updated: September 11, 2025
From one subject to another, the host fell at last upon the praises of the first comer; told how he had fainted, how he had gone to bed without supper, and had locked himself in; and spoke of his well-filled saddle-bags, the goodness of his nag, and the handsome travelling-dress he wore, all which made it strange that he travelled without any attendant.
Then he betook himself to his treasury and, taking a small pair of saddle-bags, filled them with gold; and he called to mind his brother's threats and the contempt wherewith he had treated him, and he repeated these couplets:
For the first eighteen miles or so, which brought us to Frederick, my horse stepped out cheerily enough, though he carried far more weight than he had yet been burdened with, in the shape of myself and full saddle-bags. Here we baited, an obscure inn which had been recommended to me as "safe;" and late in the afternoon held on for Newmarket.
The landscape was charming, the climate agreeable, spring was approaching, I was out in the open air, camping at night by a fire wherever my charges lay down to sleep, eating what I chose of the ample supply of good food which I carried in my saddle-bags. I was happy, thoroughly happy, and I throve from my arrival.
The nearest hamlet was an Indian pueblo, twenty-six miles away, in the Rio Jemez Valley, and representatives of the army seldom had occasion to visit our outposts. The mail arrived from Santa Fé every Saturday afternoon, and left every Monday morning in the saddle-bags of two cavalry express-men. To the soldiers life in the valleys was very pleasant.
So they pulled up by a stream and suffered the beasts to drink some water, though not much, while they themselves devoured biltong, of which they had a little in the saddle-bags. "Why do we ride for the peak?" asked Suzanne.
My fish is frozen stiff, and my legs are as dead as the mutton in the saddle-bags. Geoffrey, you are a fool," he said. "Charity is very fine, and business even better; but a good coal fire is the best of all. But in for a penny of it, in for a pound. Hark! I hear some fellow-fool equally determined to be frozen. I'll go at once and hail him; perhaps the sight of him will warm me."
Then, it appeared that my debt to the Union was paid, so that it had no further lien on my effects or me. The saddle-bags were soon packed; in another half-hour, I stood outside the prison-door realizing, with a dull, dazed feeling of strangeness and novelty, that there was not the shadow of bolt, bar, or wall between me and the clear sultry skies.
This is good work, considering the ponies seldom exceed fourteen hands two inches, and have to carry a couple of heavy saddle-bags in addition to their rider. Gerôme must have ridden quite fourteen stone. About ten o'clock the horses arrived, in charge of a miserable-looking Shagird, in rags and a huge lamb's-wool cap, the only warm thing about him.
But when one of the men began to build a fire, while the others flung off light saddle-bags from the little gray and the sorrel an exceptionally rangy horse he came in a way to understand. Further, with the fire crackling pleasantly and his bridle and saddle removed, he understood fully the cause of this halt.
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