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Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence The World Rewired 1St Edition Tom James Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
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Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence
Blockchain and
Artificial
Intelligence
The World Rewired
Edited by
Tom James
ISBN 978-3-11-066114-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-066445-4
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-066134-7
www.degruyter.com
Preface
Over the centuries there have been key defining moments where jump shifts in tech-
nology suddenly opened up new opportunities for the human race or changed how
we interacted with our world.
This book takes a look at how the emergence of two such technologies – artificial
intelligence (AI) and blockchain – is already starting to redefine how the world
around us works and how that world interacts with us.
The first time that the two words “Artificial” and “Intelligence” were put together
was on the 31st of August 1955, when Prof. John McCarty from the University of Dart-
mouth, together with M. L Minsky, N. Rochester and C. E. Shannon, asked the Rock-
efeller foundation to fund a summer of research on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Artificial intelligence is any task performed by a program or machine, which
would otherwise require human intelligence to accomplish it. It is the science and
engineering of making computer systems demonstrate human-like intelligence, es-
pecially visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation be-
tween languages.
There are two types of AI, General AI and Narrow AI. We are still currently
experiencing Narrow AI – AI programs capable of solving one specific problem.
General AI is still work in progress; it can be defined as an artificial intelligence pro-
gram capable of tackling every kind of problem it is presented with. This is similar
to an extremely powerful human, and you can think of it as the robot from Termina-
tor (but hopefully a peaceful version of it).
AI has already affected our lifestyle either directly or indirectly and is shaping
the future of tomorrow. It has become an intrinsic part of our daily life and has
greatly impacted our lifestyle with the increased use of digital assistants on mobile
phones, driver-assistance systems, chat bots, texts and speech translators, and sys-
tems that assist in recommending products, services, films we watch, music we lis-
ten to and customized learning.
The second technology addressed in this book, that of blockchain, is perhaps best
known for “Bitcoin” and other crypto currencies like “Ethereum” but separate to its
application as a currency of exchange, the underlying technology called Blockchain,
the programming language if you like, that makes it all possible, is in itself a very pow-
erful tool with many applications in the financial services industry and elsewhere.
Although the mechanics of blockchain are extremely complex, the basic idea is
simple: to decentralize the storage of data so that such data cannot be owned, con-
trolled or manipulated by a central system. It gives the potential to create blocks of
data, that are irrefutable, immutable, and so can be trusted as they are spread
across a network of computers making it far harder to hack or attack multiple sys-
tems and change the data on all of them. Because of this decentralized nature, it
provides a very high level of security for data.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664454-202
VI Preface
This technology could change the way that ownership, privacy, uncertainty and
collaboration are conceived of in the digital world, disrupting sectors and practices
as diverse as financial markets, content distribution, supply chain management,
the dispersal of humanitarian aid and even voting in a general election. This is why
the field of blockchain in the IT sector is growing very fast.
Blockchain technology provides one of the most secure and safe online transac-
tions and has shaken every industry. Due to its numerous benefits, many companies
and professionals have started to adopt blockchain technology. It is estimated that
blockchain technology has already been adopted by more than one-third of the
companies in the world.
Blockchain technology is very transparent as everything is visible to all the par-
ticipants from the beginning. This reduces the chance for any kind of discrepancy
in the system because nothing is hidden. It is also considered the most reasonable
in the world from a cost perspective to use for developing solutions, with a lot of the
languages freely available as open source for developers to use. If one compares it
with traditional software development models, it is a lot less expensive and many
companies are now looking to take advantage of this fact and save costs in their
economic model; it is starting to prove especially beneficial for the banking and fi-
nancial industry, something we look at in this book.
The most obvious area where AI and blockchain have already had a huge im-
pact is information technology operations, but there are many areas where they are
already changing how businesses interact with us as human beings. Having re-
searched the key business areas where the two technologies are having a combined
impact for this book, I selected the most interesting areas which are touching the
vast majority of our working and private life in some way. For example, the account-
ing industry where AI is already revolutionizing the analysis of what is usually a big
data problem; maritime and shipping where blockchain and AI are helping the doc-
umentation that moves commodities and vessels around the world and analysing
weather patterns and routing of vessels; human resources in selecting and finding
the best candidates from thousands of resumes; marketing with targeted advertising
and information. This list goes on; many of the areas where AI and blockchain are
touching our lives already are subtle and so I hope you will enjoy reading this book
and find it a useful eye opener to the applications and developments in AI and
blockchain that are impacting the world we live in.
Tom James
Acknowledgments
A huge thanks must go to my editorial and research team which includes my son
Kiren Chong-James in the UK, Aditya Kumar in India, and Justine Butler in the UK.
Your dedication to the project and support was invaluable. Thank you!
I must also give a massive thank you to all of my family who encouraged me to
keep pushing on with this book project despite the many difficulties and delays
caused by the Covid lockdowns around the world.
Last but certainly not least I would like to dedicate this book to my old school
friend, Andrew Fox, who sadly passed away well before his time during the Covid
Pandemic in 2020. His passion for computers when we attended school together in-
spired me to start learning computer languages and work with them since the early
1980s.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664454-203
Contents
Preface V
Acknowledgments VII
Tom James
Chapter 1
Marketing 1
Artificial Intelligence 1
Blockchain 16
Further Reading 26
Tom James
Chapter 2
Sales 29
Artificial Intelligence 29
Blockchain 40
Further Reading 48
Aditya Kumar
Chapter 4
Human Resources 71
Artificial Intelligence 71
Blockchain 83
Further Reading 93
Tom James
Chapter 8
Finance and Accounting 157
Artificial Intelligence 157
Blockchain 168
Further Reading 176
Tom James
Chapter 9
Customer Experience 177
Artificial Intelligence 177
Blockchain 189
Further Reading 196
Tom James
Chapter 11
The Coming Revolution 223
Artificial Intelligence 223
Blockchain 234
Further Reading 239
Contents XI
Contributors 245
Index 247
Tom James
Chapter 1
Marketing
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) frameworks continually take a shot at the foundations of
famous items and services like Netflix, Amazon, and Google. As great as these dis-
ruptions have been, recent years have seen in a brief time AI clearing an even more
profound path into promoting and helping brands improve each progression of the
client’s venture. As business and technological innovations in AI have gained wider
adoption, instruments accessible only once to big business organizations have now
opened the door to small- and medium-sized organizations.
Imaginative ideas of an engineered cognizance created by people – a wild de-
velopment along the lines of science fiction motion pictures – are probably not
going to be realized soon. Current AI, though simpler than a sci-fi sapience, are no
less disruptive to the world. Today’s AI are frameworks capable of performing as-
signments that would otherwise regularly require human intelligence and oversight.
Capable of incorporating aspects of critical thinking, perceiving feelings, playing
complex strategy games, and even diagnosing diseases, AI are increasingly matching
or surpassing their human counterparts. One only needs to participate in an AI show-
casing arrangement to illustrate how much the gap between information science and
execution is vanishing.
What is AI in Marketing?
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664454-001
2 Tom James
AI has increasingly been integrated into every industry with benefits not just limited
to decreasing human intercession in complex and simple tasks. Usage of AI has con-
currently led to an increase in the quality of productive output, by helping people
carry out their responsibilities better, with less effort. As such, fields like social media,
consumer electronics, robotics, travel and transportation, finance, healthcare, secu-
rity, surveillance, e-trade, etc., today are already profiting by means of AI.
A good example of where we might see the dynamic benefits of AI is in the crea-
tion of a website. Ordinarily, building up a site without at least some expertise in
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is inconceivable for a business. Be that as it may, AI has
made it conceivable. Well-known web designers like Wix utilize AI to construct
sites. The only human interaction required is in providing the substance, pictures,
and page format. Then your expertly crafted site is good to go. Such benefits in skill
and efficiency form the new normal in digital marketing.
Chapter 1 Marketing 3
Digital Marketing
Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting is enormous business. If you can reliably foresee the demand of a
specific item or administration service you will sell in a given day, you can more
4 Tom James
readily stock inventory, staff your offices better, and learn more from your business’
records, which in doing so you will gain a competitive advantage in the market.
To further assist in forecasting, you can utilize AIM for processing social affairs
information about past arrangements. AIM will contemplate the information from
messages, gatherings, and certain event calls. AIM can relate the information to the
result of the potential deals of your present and future campaigns.
Customer Experience
By 2025, as many as 95 percent of all customer interactions will be through channels supported
by artificial intelligence (AI) technology – Microsoft
AI can be effectively utilized to provide savvy, advantageous and educated client in-
volvement at all points along the client venture. This will bring about reconsidered
client encounters and start-to-finish client experiences that are incorporated into an
experience, which feels progressively natural to clients.
AI’s greatest effect without a doubt will be to change client assistance by mak-
ing it mechanized, quick, and hassle free. Salesmen, call center specialists, and
workers in other client assistance jobs can’t be relied upon to ingest and compre-
hend a client’s whole history before every discussion, as this would be an unreason-
ably time-consuming task for any person. AI, however, is presently making this task a
conceivable reality.
AI is helping organizations make encounters that regularly incorporate informa-
tion of consumer patterns with shoppers’ day-to-day routines. Customers will no
longer change their example of correspondence while collaborating with brands to
fulfill their requirements. Wise expectation and customization will cause clients to
feel as though every item or brand experience was custom-made only for them.
Organizations will have the option to evaluate individual customer inventories
and purchaser practices to anticipate and order merchandise to homes before they’re
even aware they are coming up short. Self-driving vehicles will utilize their frame-
works to identify the most efficient favored courses and in-vehicle amusement se-
lected from a personal profile based upon past conduct will enhance everyday drives
and excursions. Requesting assistance will become a simpler process as AI with the
ability to understand and emulate feelings will make client-experience collaborations
smoother and streamlined across all channels.
Chapter 1 Marketing 5
Promotions Pre-Purchase
Surveys
Post-Purchase
Customer Service
Billing & Payment
Technical Support
Voice of Customer
Product Usage
Account Management
Online Help
Logistics
The majority of coustomer data necessary to discover impactful insights is hidden ‘below the surface’.
AI provides the capacity to mine this data, so you can deliver superior customer experience
Figure 1.1: The Big Data Map of customer data necessary to discover impactful insights
for business.
Source: www.pointillist.com; https://www.pointillist.com/blog/role-of-ai-in-customer-experience/
The intensity of AI-empowered client analytics is that it can filter through a greater
and progressively complex information space, and in this manner reveal a lot more
business opportunities – even opportunities you may not have been aware you ought
to be searching for. Therefore, you can invest your energy organizing these bits of
knowledge into useful categories as opposed to manually and endlessly poring over a
deluge of hidden information.
Programmatic Ad Targeting
be based upon anything from area, age, sex, and time, among other things. If the
model predicts value, the advertisement purchasing framework will consequently
offer on the impression and display the winning content.
Facebook‘s advertisements offer a case of this in practice. Facebook allows adver-
tisers and publicists to utilize information investigation in computerized marketing to
make custom profiles to target and retarget their promotions. This is information you
share via web-based networking media platforms when you consent on the end-user
license agreement (EULA).
Chatbots
1 2
Answer FAQ
Yes Yes
Yes No
Personalize response
Yes No
8 Tom James
Yes No
Yes No
Source: Author.
Speech Recognition
Need to feel what it’s like to have an AI assistant like Jarvis from the Marvel film
“Iron Man”? All things considered, Jarvis is conceivably still far ahead of present-
day technological capabilities, however, that doesn’t mean the creation of a true AI
assistant won’t occur at some point in the future. At present, we have comparatively
promised AIs with speech recognition capabilities – Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa
among others – each constituting an AI chatbot with voice recognition capabilities
capable of assisting users with various queries.
These AIs can perceive certain expressed words and convert them into the con-
tent to be executed in the correct order. Speech recognition is even utilized in applica-
tions, for example, Google Maps, Shazam, and different handheld devices.
So, by what method would marketers be able to exploit speech recognition for
their campaigns? According to projections on virtual assistant ownership, >55% of
families will have a savvy speaker by 2022 up from only 13% in 2018. Furthermore,
deals from vocal shopping orders are predicted to soar to US$40 billion in 2022, up
from just US$2 billion out of 2018. Assuming the predictions are accurate, this speaks
volumes (pun intended), as far as the need to utilize speech recognition in any mar-
keting effort goes.
Chapter 1 Marketing 9
The general speech and voice recognition market is estimated to reach US$21.5 bil-
lion by 2024 from US$7.5 billion out of 2018, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR)
of 19.18%. The development of the speech and voice recognition market can be as-
cribed to the high development potential in medicinal services application, developing
interest for voice confirmation in versatile financial application, fast expansion of mul-
tifunctional gadgets or smart speakers, and the developing effect of AI on the precision
of speech and voice recognition (see Figure 1.3).
CAGR
19.18%
The overall speech and voice recognition market is estimated to grow from
USD 7.5 billion by 2018 to USD 21.5 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 19.18%
during the forecast period.
The market growth can be attributed to the high growth potential in healthcare
application, growing demand for voice authentication in mobile banking
application, rapid proliferation of multifunctional devices or smart speakers, and
growing impact of AI on the accuracy of speech and voice recognition period.
USD The consumer vertical is expected to be dominant in speech and voice
USD 21.5 recognition market during the forecast period.
7.5 Billion
Billion The market for on-premises/embedded speech and voice recognition is
expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.
2018 2024
When contrasted with speech recognition, the voice recognition advertising indus-
try is estimated to develop at a higher rate from 2021 to 2024 inferable from the
developing utilization of voice recognition in multifaceted validation frameworks
in Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), government, and defense
verticals (Figure 1.4). In North America and Western Europe, an enormous number of
banking clients use telephone banking services. A significant number of these money-
related foundations are embracing voice-based validation answers for acknowledging
or dismissing versatile exchanges from a client. Moreover, the market for voice recogni-
tion innovation is observed to grow higher in the administration, finance, and enter-
prise verticals during the following two–three years. This warrants emphasizing the
information security worries due to cyberattacks and data breaches by intruders in-
creasing concurrent to the high development of the voice recognition showcase.
10 Tom James
7.5
Figure 1.4: Speech and voice recognition market, by region (USD billion).
Source: Industry Experts, Secondary Research, and Markets and Markets Analysis.
Content Generation
The manual age of substance and content generation is full of dull procedures. In-
stead, envision having a site that can create its own substance. You don’t need to re-
cruit essayists or editors, and you’ll have a self-supporting site that can procure results
for you. Life would be simpler for you as an advertiser. Imagine a scenario where you
realized that AI calculations would already be able to go this far.
This is called content generation. You’ve presumably perused generated con-
tent without knowing or seeing it. Tragically, AI is not yet able to make long and
smoothly composed articles by CEOs, industry pioneers, bloggers, and other skilled
scholars offering expert information and analysis. Where it excels (as of this compo-
sition), is in generating straightforward stories and narratives. For example, stock
updates, monetary reports, sports news, etc.
If you need assistance in creating customized content for your site, there’s an-
other method to do, it’s called content intelligence. In contrast to content genera-
tion, this furnishes makers with information-driven input and bits of knowledge for
progressively powerful substance that will yield better outcomes (see Figure 1.5).
At present, content marketing has expanded into a worldwide industry. It’s per-
vasive to the point that some allude to it as the main kind of marketing.
Computer-based intelligence is approaching the point where it can possibly
both minister and produce content, at that point placing it before the comparative
skill of ideal individuals on the right platforms. This innovation is now robotizing
the content age on an essential level, yet in the end, AI could create practical sub-
jects for authors, or even create beginning drafts of substance dependent on specific
parameters.
Chapter 1 Marketing 11
On the strategy side, AI can possibly assist advertisers with mapping out a start-
to- finish content procedure. As of today, some marketing techniques are providing
this component. I anticipate it will also have the option to create far reaching reports
providing details regarding content activities, with next to zero human work included.
Dynamic Pricing
80% of study members considered value the absolute most significant factor in a buy.
12 Tom James
Even though they are mind boggling models, these dynamic pricing AI models are
grounded in an exceptionally basic idea:
Convey the correct cost for each client while expanding income for the business.
Have you at any point wondered how Uber, Amazon, and Airbnb entered estab-
lished markets and pulverized all their rivals in business? One of the significant
common factors of success for these three tech goliaths is that they’ve integrated
dynamic pricing as a central spoke for their marketing operations, matching the im-
mediate supply to the immediate demand in the market for the optimum price.
Here’s a model of this in action: the charge of an Uber ride is considerably
lower than an ordinary taxi. When there’s a cultural event likely to drive up de-
mand, for example, when there’s a match or a ball game coming up and the demand
spikes, the costs also will see a rise to match demand. To watch the game, you must
pay progressively because of the demand. The upside is, provided you tolerate the
increased fare you will also benefit from the consistent availability of Ubers to hire
despite the recent increase in demand. Since the fares are better there will be more
drivers around the ballpark, thus allocating the availability of services where the
demand has also increased. As these cultural events end, the demand returns to
the market normal and the accessibility increases as the cost decreases to match
the lowered demand.
AIM has been gaining more attention among advertisers considering the benefits it pro-
vides. As indicated by an ongoing PwC study, 72% view AI as a “business advantage.”
Advertisers are plunging their toes into more astute promotions, with account-based
marketing arrangements and AI assistants providing valuable assistance with rapid
Chapter 1 Marketing 13
analysis of huge sums of internet data. With another medium of information accessible,
online advertisements can become even more effective and wide-reaching. AI arrange-
ments can delve profoundly into keyword searches, social profiles, and other online
information for human-level results.
With AI, advertisers can take information and targeting to an entire new level. Audi-
ence analytics can go past the regular socioeconomics level, to comprehend custom-
ers on an individual basis. Presently, marketing personnel can utilize AI to both
recognize potential customers or purchasers and convey the perfect content that is
generally applicable to them. With big data, machine learning, and AI joined, there
is very little a wise marketer can’t accomplish.
Depending on Bots
Client assistance and retention is another territory where AI in the future will play
an emerging critical role. Before long, chat functions and other direct-to-consumer
engagement will be controlled by AI bots. Numerous organizations can spare repre-
sentative time and expenses with these strategies. AI bots additionally approach a
whole web of information, data, and search narratives, making them substantially
more effective than their human partners.
Continued Learning
Perhaps the most promising feature of AI is that it can really be “educated,” learning
how to fuse recently revealed experiences into new campaigns, enhancing efforts to
target the most significant and promising of clients. Over time, these AI arrangements
will turn out to be progressively more intelligent, more conversational, and more ca-
pable of adept real-time decision-making.
AI in driverless cars (e.g., Tesla) In the future, AI- enable cars may allow for car journeys
without any driver input, with the potential to significantly
impact various industries (e.g., insurance, taxi service) and
customer behaviors (e.g., whether they still buy cars).
Online retailing AI (e.g., Birchbox) AI will enable better predictions for what customers want,
which may cause firms to move away from a shopping-then-
shipping business model and toward a shipping-then-
shopping business model.
Fashion-related AI (e.g., Stitch Fix) AI applications support stylists, who curate a set of clothing
items for customers. Stitch Fix’s AI analyzes both numeric
and image/other non-numeric data.
Sales AI (e.g., Conversica) AI bots can automate parts of the sale process, augmenting
the capabilities of existing sales teams. There may be
backlash if customers know (upfront) that they are chatting
with an AI bot (even if the AI bot is otherwise capable)
Customer service robots (e.g., Robots with task-automating AI respond to relatively simple
Rock’em and Sock’em; Pepper) customer service requests (e.g., making cocktails).
Emotional support AI (e.g., Replika) AI aims to provide emotional support to customer by asking
meaningful questions, offering social support and adjusting
to users’ linguistic syntax.
In-car AI (e.g., Affectiva) In-car AI that analyse driver data (e.g., facial expression) to
evaluate drivers’ emotional and cognitive states.
Chapter 1 Marketing 15
Customer screening AI (e.g., Kanetix) AI used to identify customers who should be provided
incentives to buy insurance (and avoid those who () are
already likely to buy and () those unlikely to buy).
Business process AI (e.g., IBM AI used for multiple (simple) applications, such as
Interact) customized offers (e.g., Bank of Montreal).
Retail store AI (e.g., Café X, Lowebot, Robots that can serve as coffee baristas, respond to simple
., Bossa Nova) customer service requests in Lowe’s stores, and identifying
misshelved items in grocery stores.
Security AI (e.g., knightscope’ K) Security robots patrol in office or malls, equipped with
superior sensing capabilities (e.g., thermal cameras).
Companion robot AI (e.g., Harmony Customizable robot companion, which promises reduce
from Realbotix) loneliness to the user.
and client practices (e.g., data search). Organizations like Birchbox, Stitch Fix, and
Trendy Butler as of now use AI to attempt to foresee what their clients need, with
shifting degrees of accomplishment.
Blockchain
The underlying foundations of blockchain innovation can be traced back to 1991
when Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta proposed an idea called a blockchain. It
was a framework that comprised of a chain of blocks protected by cryptography and
verified by digital timestamps that couldn’t be changed.
In 2008, an anonymous person (it is uncertain whether they were an individual
or group of people operating under a pseudonym) named Satoshi Nakamoto utilized
this idea to present Bitcoin – a cryptocurrency that empowered individuals to com-
plete exchanges without the need for a middle person, for example, a bank.
Through the span of 10 years, a few digital forms of money entered the market,
for example, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, EOS, etc. In any case, it is important not to
mistake Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as the sole application for blockchain
technology. Cryptocurrencies are just a single use of the enormous potential behind
blockchain, which is the most secure way yet to encode sensitive data.
Blockchain might be a moderately recent innovation, yet it’s already changing
the world. An ongoing overview by Deloitte found that 83% of respondents see con-
vincing uses for blockchain in 2019, up from 74% in 2018.
Advertisers are also standing by enthusiastically to perceive how blockchain
will affect or streamline their work. Many companies have gone to blockchain and
marketing specialists to figure out how the innovation is presently being utilized in
the marketing field, and how marketers can best leverage blockchain technology
later.
5
the chain which provides an
indelible and transparent record
6 The money moves from A to B
of transactions
When the World Wide Web first brought the individuals of earth close together, it
had an equalizing impact (generally): Anyone with access to a PC, an ISP, and
power could profit by the web, regardless of once great geographical barriers or
market access. Something remarkably similar will occur with information. Each per-
son on the planet will have rights concerning who utilizes their information, and
the instrument that will make this privacy achievable is blockchain encryption.
18 Tom James
This coming democratization of information won’t just give clients much more say
about how their information is utilized, it will also push advertisers to think of better
approaches to cooperate with clients and improve their shopping experience in some
way. Furthermore, you will have the option to accumulate more precise information
about every client, even more so than you ever could with cookies.
To see how blockchain will change the marketing scene, we should take a gander at
the three principal reasons why blockchain technology is rapidly being adopted:
1. Decentralization
In a concentrated or customer server model, there’s (at least one) entity known as
the server that has all the data, and you (the customer) must communicate with the
server to access the data. For instance, if you must send cash to somebody by means
of the web, you have to do so by engaging with a mediator, for example, a bank. Along-
side the addition of a broker, the unified model is vulnerable to numerous dangers like
information leaks.
By contrast, a person-to-person (P2P) server is decentralized. There’s no single
host of the data. Actually, as observed before, each hub in the system stores the
data locally. Thus, if you need to send cash to somebody, you can do so straightfor-
wardly without directing it through a broker.
2. Unchanging Nature
The second benefit is security through the immutable nature of blockchain records.
When a block is verified, the information stored can’t be adjusted or deleted. Any
attempt to deceive a block in the blockchain will altogether change the information
alongside the hash of its past blocks. Since the entire blockchain has now trans-
formed, it can’t be confirmed by any other hub. Anybody attempting to hack into the
blockchain needs to modify records at every hub, which is practically impossible.
3. Transparency
Since blockchain is a distributed digital ledger, all members in the blockchain have
access to the exchanges that have occurred. This may sound alarming at a first
glance, however there’s no compelling reason to be alarmed. Though all the ex-
changes are accessible to the blockchain members, the identity of each transac-
tion’s members remains anonymous.
On a larger scale, blockchain innovation can possibly handle a few hidden separa-
tion points in marketing and advertising: transparency of supply chains and ad fraud.
In 2018, promoters lost an expected $19 billion to extortion, as indicated by Ju-
niper Research. Subsequently, the absolute greatest names in tech are turning to
blockchain for solutions to battle scams and criminal schemes, endeavoring to
Chapter 1 Marketing 19
Blockchain innovation is set to disrupt all sectors – BFSI, real estate, media, retail, me-
dicinal services, and legal, just to name a few. Big corporate names, like IBM, Microsoft,
Oracle, Intel, and Apple have seen the potential and have begun to make advances into
utilizing blockchain technology.
With so much promotion encompassing the innovation, we should look at the
blockchain techniques and best practices that are changing the marketing scene.
Influencer Marketing
Brands are intensely focusing their resources into big name and smaller scale influ-
encers to spread their message to a more engaged, younger crowd, inaccessible to
many forms of traditional advertising. Despite the apparent strengths of influencer
marketing bypassing adblocks and attaching a personality to a product or brand,
influencer marketing gets a terrible reputation in marketing strategy because of
sleuth of issues. Trouble in following the ROI, an absence of transparency with
cases of sponsorships or marketing deals not being disclosed to audience subscrib-
ers and scams such as phony supporters being used to lure in marketers with a false
image of popularity and market reach.
Blockchain can adequately resolve these issues by presenting smart contracts
in the ecosystem. Smart contracts will encourage the payout upon the completion of
a certain activity or upon delivery of the ideal outcomes.
This innovation can also be utilized to confirm the performance and authentic-
ity of the influencer. For example, Socialmedia.market is an Ethereum-based influ-
encer marketing stage that empowers promoters to work with influencers and offers
a dispute solution framework.
Any CFO or COO will value a portion of the ground-floor enhancements blockchain
brings to the table. For example, the speed with which exchanges can be completed
carefully will significantly expand the quantity of exchanges per second, from a
20 Tom James
thousand to millions per second, and every one of those exchanges provides a brand
with value.
As indicated by an Accenture report, receiving blockchain could cut framework
costs by 30%. Maybe more interesting is that blockchain expels the requirement for
outsiders to be engaged with transactions, emails, or other kinds of promoting.
Blockchain gives brands an immediate link to every client, and capital that once
used to be given to middlemen would now be able to be applied to more productive
expansion of the company.
Further stringent development of data protection rights will in future constrain brands
to treat client privacy with closer regard. The current arrangement where clients con-
cerned about their privacy may have to opt out of hundreds of cookies every time, they
try to use an online service simply results in a disregard for customer privacy, or cus-
tomers abandoning services altogether. Blockchain technology will streamline this pro-
cess of information sharing or protection. Brands should be unequivocal about getting
authorization to gather data and straightforward in explaining what will be done with
such data. This sort of straightforwardness will inculcate trust, and with data breaches
being such a common issue, brands need all the assistance they can get to avoid falling
short of legal requirements. Blockchain can improve consumer trust in different ways
as well. For example, blockchain would make it viable for a marketing brand to pen
down case studies showcasing how it ensures data transparency in a manner freely
verifiable (see Figure 1.7).
Smart Contracts
Without Blockchain
Website Advertiser
Owner
With Blockchain
Website Advertiser
Owner Figure 1.7: Data transparency.
Source: Search Engine Land.
Loyalty Programs
Clients join loyalty programs since they are either effectively faithful to your brand
or are hoping to get redeemable discounts. The average American family is a part of
29 diverse loyalty programs yet utilizes just 12 of them.
The issue with loyalty programs for clients is in the redemption of points. Cli-
ents need to monitor distinctive loyalty programs and reclaim them before the offer
lapses. In this way, instead of being a win-win situation for brands and clients, it
turns out to be detrimental for both, since brands and customers alike are missing
out by creating a liability and lost gain, respectively.
22 Tom James
Loyalty programs filled by blockchain can take care of this issue by presenting
a frictionless framework. As blockchain is decentralized, different brands can work
together by permitting clients to reclaim loyalty points with any brands within the
system. Since the loyalty points are stored continuously, clients can reclaim them
on the go. In such a way, everybody in the system wins.
Example: Loyalcoin, Sandblock, and KeyoCoin are a part of the loyalty program
arrangements created on blockchain innovation.
Based on loyalty program participation, numerous brands have had difficulties with
making sense of how to get clients to react to discounts, just as they have pondered
how to determine what the optimal discount rate ought to be. If the brand offers too
little, clients won’t go through the hassle of attempting to reclaim a coupon through
their application. Offer a discount that is too generous, and the brand’s margin goes
down. What’s more, if nobody’s reacting to your incentive program, your brand
isn’t gathering any client data.
Blockchain addresses this problem by simplifying the relationship between cus-
tomer loyalty, reward, and data collection. For example, an organization called GAT-
COIN plans to consolidate blockchain and mobile targeting to assist retailers with
pulling in and retaining new clients. Through an omnichannel stage, brands can
issue “trader tokens“ to a huge crowd of clients in an assortment of flavors, from pre-
paid money tokens to discount, gift, and travel tokens.
We live in the consideration economy where if you’re not catching the clients‘ con-
sideration, you’re losing it. Brands pour truckloads of cash in internet promoting to
such an extent that the market for worldwide digital advertisement consumption is
anticipated to grow up to 333.25 billion USD before the current year is over.
Since blockchain is so difficult to degenerate and records precise narratives of
online conduct, this innovation of information technology is ideal for making it pos-
sible to uncover one of the greatest conundrums in internet promoting: how can
you ever be truly certain that anybody is looking at your online content? Metrics
like clicks can be spoofed by bots, whilst someone can watch an advertisement and
never leave a click.
Utilizing blockchain, a brand could now really pay clients to watch promotions
and accordingly confirm that the advertisement was conveyed and seen by a genu-
ine individual. This would incorporate enhancing the recurrence of advertisements
Chapter 1 Marketing 23
to guarantee that you’re not over-delivering them. In all likelihood clients would be
paid in a blockchain currency that could be traded out through a loyalty program.
Blockchain can assist you with benefiting as much as possible from your venture
by demonstrating your advertisements to the intended interest group that is generally
interested in your offerings. For instance, a blockchain-based web browser called
Brave empowers its clients to choose the sorts of advertisements they get to see.
Brave has presented Basic Attention Token (BAT), an Ethereum-based utility token
that gets circulated among publishers and customers depending upon the promotions
seen. In this way, basically, the advertiser is giving clients value in exchange for their
attention, guaranteeing that the advertisement spending plan is effectively spent.
Other examples: Kind Ads and Impetus One offer highlights in a similar vein.
Content Licensing
There are other client engagement applications, like safely paying clients for utiliza-
tion of any of their brand products or content, such as photographs or recordings that
incorporate your brand. This is particularly pertinent to social media influencers yet
could be expanded in scope to any copyrightable material utilized, in a crusade to
guarantee that makers of videos, pictures, or music have conceded legitimate rights
of use to other content producers and are well compensated for their work.
Verification Services
The open-source nature of blockchain affords it a vast range of potential future ap-
plications. Blockchain can enable frameworks that are decentralized, scalable, and
secure. For example, valid authentication controlled by private-public encryption
framework is a built-in feature of blockchain. This feature, combined with the sim-
ple availability of peer-to-peer functions, empower blockchain to give the best in-
class arrangements in data accreditation and document verification. Numerous new
businesses have just begun to take a shot at blockchain based data verification sol-
utions. Stampery is one such company that furnishes coordinated data verification
with auditable forensics.
Educational institutions can also use blockchain to execute worldwide frame-
works intended to authenticate educational documents, consequently empowering
students, selection representatives and other legitimate entities to freely check re-
cords in a flash.
24 Tom James
Social media applications have amassed billions of clients since the most recent de-
cade. Although social media has given clients a lot of chances to associate with
their family, peers, most loved brands, and celebs, it comes at the expense of their
data. Since promotion deals are the essential income stream for social media apps,
they track activity to improve their focused research capacities. This information
combined with the latest data leaks has made clients wary in regard to utilizing so-
cial media.
Example: Blockchain-based social media stages give power back to clients. Apps,
for example, Peepeth and mastodon.social are taking care of precisely the same issue.
With verified profiles dependent on trusted data, brands can essentially improve
their marketing programs. The present client profiles are siloed in certain brand da-
tabases like Facebook and Google; however, marketing can be substantially closer
and important if it’s planned over numerous sources.
Even though the marketing proverb “right message, perfect individual, oppor-
tune time” isn’t new information to anyone, blockchain provides a new more pre-
dictable route for this to be validated. What’s more, it includes a truly necessary
layer of consent. Blockchain-empowered marketing allows the customer to choose
when, where, and how brands can associate with them.
The advantages don’t end at consent. Purchasers can also expect a few different
advantages that span investment funds and security. Since advertising will be espe-
cially effective and less expensive to brands, individuals will really get a good deal
on items. Since data protections and transparency across profiles, advertising, and
exchanges will be fundamentally upgraded, digital fraud will eventually vanish.
Here are four different ways your marketing efforts can profit by blockchain
innovation:
1. Diminished Costs
Since blockchain is a decentralized, peer-to-peer technology, you can reduce costs
right off the bat by expelling third parties/middlemen from the condition. Promo-
tion networks are infamous for redundancy and waste, begging to be spent for the
sake of charges or benefit cuts. The incorporation of smart contracts guarantees that
you’re paying just for the details of the understanding met. This empowers brands to
manage publishers, specialists, external merchants, or clients and pay them without
depending on the middlemen. And while blockchain may acquire some foundational
costs, this is offset by the fact that the exchange costs are nearly zero.
Chapter 1 Marketing 25
2. Crowd Targeting
By decentralizing the advertising ecosystem, brands can straightforwardly interface
with the correct publishers and take their message to the target audience. Since cli-
ents get paid for survey advertisements, brands can also be guaranteed that they’ll
get the most value for their money.
For instance, a near-field communications (NFC) label sewn into a luxury hand-
bag and associated with an application can empower a brand to push messages to
the handbag’s owner, who is associated on the blockchain to that individual item.
An opted-in bag owner can be welcomed to an exclusive occasion/event with her
bag going about as the ticket/entry pass to that occasion/event, or get discount
codes for another handbag when the manufacturer of that handbag realizes the
present one is approaching the end of its life expectancy.
Blockchain-empowered focusing can also be utilized with specific areas, maybe
driving footfall into another store to redeem a voucher. This mix of offline and on-
line drivers gives advertisers a ground-breaking weapon to add to their arsenal.
3. Increased Efficiency
In general, work that includes desk work will be tedious and repetitive. Take re-
ceipt/invoice preparing for instance. When you raise a receipt, you must hang tight
for the payment. You must wait until a middleman releases the payment. Blockchain
handles these issues by empowering exchanges to occur progressively. Since the data
is open to both gatherings, it isn’t important to keep up discrete records, and the exe-
cution of smart contracts encourages immediate payment when the terms in the un-
derstanding are met.
4. Decentralized Applications
With regard to conventional mobile applications, the standards are directed by the
Play Store or App Store. The equivalent goes for any platform that has a solitary po-
sition controlling the entire platform.
Since no single authority administers decentralized applications, no one party
can dictate terms of operation to another – application makers are not left to the
mercy of application hosts. Steem empowers brands to make applications and gives
them a chance to earn and build such a decentralized network. Ethereum, EOS,
NEO, Tron, Cardano, etc., are also a few stages that empower you to fabricate appli-
cations on their platform.
Interest from buyers to control their own data will only increase in the following
years, and blockchain with its consent-based access and difficult to split security is a
great choice in data management technology moving forward. Nevertheless, blockchain
26 Tom James
Further Reading
Artificial Intelligence
https://www.mageplaza.com/blog/ai-marketing-what-why-how.html
https://emarsys.com/learn/blog/artificial-intelligence-marketing-solutions/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/08/21/how-artificial-intelligence-is-
transforming-digital-marketing/#f67d11421e1b
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/08/marketers-use-artificial-intelligence/
https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/10-applications-of-artificial-intelligence-in-digital-
marketing-a562a37db2bd
https://www.pointillist.com/blog/role-of-ai-in-customer-experience/
https://chatbotsmagazine.com/why-artificial-intelligence-plays-an-important-role-in-chatbot-
development-7a6da9fd1817
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/speech-voice-recognition-market-
202401714.html
http://www.curata.com/blog/content-intelligence/
https://hackernoon.com/ai-and-dynamic-pricing-secret-weapon-of-tech-giants-today-yln32ut
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00696-0
Chapter 1 Marketing 27
Blockchain
https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/blockchain/what-is-blockchain-how-to-use-it-in-
marketing/
https://emarsys.com/learn/blog/blockchain-changing-marketing/
https://www.singlegrain.com/blockchain/blockchain-explained/
https://cmo.adobe.com/articles/2018/12/how-blockchain-will-change-marketing-in-2019.html#gs.
4cudtc
https://www.leanplum.com/blog/blockchain-marketing/
https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/how-blockchain-is-disrupting-digital-marketing-and-
where-its-headed/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2019/09/18/how-blockchain-is-changing-digital-
marketing/#592306b216eb
https://medium.com/digital-realm/blockchain-document-verification-f9e40b708100
Tom James
Chapter 2
Sales
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed everything – and sales are no exemption. AI
is helping salespeople support lead volume, quality, and close rate.
It influences how clients purchase – and how salespeople need to sell.
AI fills purchasing decisions we make each day, from the shows we watch and
the routes our driver takes to the things we order on the web.
Suggestion, area, and association algorithms are our behind-the-scenes pur-
chasing influencers, and they make AI fascinatingly creepy and cool for the same
reason: our gadgets know and learn a great deal about us, creating analysis of be-
havioral patterns we may not even be aware we’re following.
With the increasing adoption of AI, we can expect to see an automation of a
significant part of the sales procedure. Accordingly, sales groups will be freed to
concentrate on closing deals. Thus, sales pioneers anticipated that their groups’ AI
appropriation would become 155% by 2020, as per Salesforce. Salesforce addition-
ally found that high-performing sales reps are 4.9 times more likely to utilize AI
than others. Whether we find AI to be creepy or cool, no salesperson can afford to
ignore the changes AI will bring to sales.
What is AI in Sales?
Sales are hard. Transformation rates are low and the sales cycle is longer. Your cli-
ents don’t simply take out their credit cards to purchase things. They need hand-
holding and a great deal of approval. You must make calls, meet them face to face,
answer their interests, and keep on managing them after sales to guarantee that
you construct a solid relationship with them. AI can make this somewhat simpler.
AI today doesn’t aim to supplant sales reps, instead serving in an ancillary role
as a partner to human-led sales efforts by:
1. Assisting with mechanizing dreary assignments like data entry and scheduling a
meeting or complicated job that doesn’t require personal connections like sales
determining/forecasting.
2. Identifying patterns in client reactions to empower salespeople to organize all
the better and improve as a sales individual.
3. Give group pioneers detailed research on all correspondence between sales reps
and potential customers including emails, calls, and talks.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664454-002
30 Tom James
AI is helping salespeople support lead volume, quality, and close rate. AI can com-
puterize and enlarge a significant part of the sales procedure, subsequently allow-
ing sales groups to concentrate on closing deals. The way AI is changing sales
exercises and techniques, influencing client relations, and creating organizations
between sales agents and AI, has attracted acute business attention. Here is an out-
line of some of the ways AI can improve sales forms and give excellent outcomes.
Price Optimization
Forecast Sales
Sales supervisors face the overwhelming test of attempting to anticipate where their
group’s complete sales numbers will fall each quarter. Utilizing an AI calculation,
supervisors are currently ready to foresee with a high level of exactness the next
quarter’s income, which would thus support an organization’s efforts to oversee
stock and assets more readily.
The quickest and most affordable approach to develop your top-line income is to offer
more to your current customer base. As enticingly simple as that sounds, the million-
dollar question is, who is bound to purchase more? You can spend a great deal of
cash on advertising to the individuals who won’t purchase, or you can utilize an AI
calculation to help distinguish which of your current customers are bound to pur-
chase a superior rendition of what they presently own (up-sell) or advertise a product
or service to an existing customer using other products or services (cross-sell). The
net impact is an expansion in income and a drop in advertising costs.
32 Tom James
Performance Management
Sales supervisors need to consistently evaluate the income pipelines of each of their
salespeople with an eye towards supporting deals that may slow down, or more un-
fortunately, fail to work out. Utilizing AI, sales supervisors would now be able to
utilize dashboards to outwardly observe which salespeople are probably going to
hit their targets alongside which exceptional arrangements have the highest poten-
tial for successful closure. This will permit supervisors to concentrate on key sales-
people and related deals that will enable the organization to hit their quarterly or
monthly market share target.
Prioritizing Calls
Salespeople can regularly distinguish which leads to seek after, but realizing which
leads to seek first isn’t consistently self-evident. AI can provide an empirical reliability
to these choices with calculations that incorporate verifiable exchange data, communi-
cation details and online networking on rank leads and the odds of closing deals.
Earning client lifetime esteem has consistently been a test for sales pioneers and
salespeople. Who will renew? Who will leave? Above all, why?
AI can help distinguish the strength of relationships and point salespeople to-
ward those who need consideration and those whose esteem is ironclad. A few asso-
ciations use AI to do this month to month so it’s never past the point where it is
possible to expand the lifetime esteem of clients.
Chapter 2 Sales 33
Sales Automation
Pipeline Creation
AI tools can help salespeople fill pipelines quickly. There are AI devices today that
find new leads for you within your databases. Others will discover new leads that
resemble your present leads. Also, a few devices even give contact data to individu-
als in your addressable market.
Research
The battle to discover customers, research and stay up with the latest market trends
and changes is an assignment that sucks time and vitality from a sales group’s day. AI
innovation planned explicitly for research can transform that activity into a largely au-
tomated process.
There’s just one issue. AI can’t work without information and it needs a great
deal of it to make top notch forecasts. Any manager who’s tried knows that getting
sales groups to enter information reliably can be harder than getting the 800-pound
telephone to make a cold pitch. Salespeople tend to be busy focusing on client en-
gagement. When they must choose between work that results in winning or losing a
commission check, they’re going to push forward and work legitimately with their
records, not invest energy entering information into a CRM framework.
Fortunately, AI and automation tools are incredible assistants for data entry. Inno-
vation can’t assuage desk work and data entry entirely (yet), but it can certainly help.
Outreach and SalesLoft stages follow and oversee email correspondence. Items
like Yesware and Mixmax guarantee inbox information discovers its way into the
corporate client relationship management framework. Once documented, the infor-
mation would then be able to be curated by people and bots. Salesforce takes note
that half of sales estimates are driven by information alone, and that number should
increase in the next few years.
Another random document with
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stayed where she was a little, holding her head sidewise in the
attitude of a listener.
“Lora,” she murmured presently, her voice inquiring, “Lora, Lora.”
Then, slowly and clumsily, she made her way to the base of the
perch, and with beak and talons climbed it.
It was past the noon angelus when Padre Alonzo came waddling
along the path, and he found the garden still—still, and filled with the
sun-drawn incense of trees and flowers.
“Sst sst! Tony will be too warm, I fear,” he was saying aloud as he
neared the cage. “The little one shall go to a cooler spot.” And with
this conclusion, he halted beside the perch of the parrot and lifted
the chirping canary down to his knee.
“Buenos días,” he said to Loretta, pausing a moment: “a good-day,
truly, but over-hot, so that my cassock makes of me a living olla, for I
am beaded with water drops from top to toe.”
The parrot shifted a little, and again set her head sidewise, as if she
were puzzled and listening. Next, she edged toward him, and
uncertainly, putting a foot down, clasping and unclasping the pole,
trying it cautiously. Against the vertical piece that made her perch
like a cross she teetered awkwardly and stopped.
“Loretta,” said the padre, in some concern, “hast anything in thy
craw? Well, gulp down a stone and grind thy grist. What one
swallowest that must one digest.”
The gravel crunched behind him. He glanced back, to see Padre
Anzar advancing, brown cowl shading hollow eyes.
Padre Alonzo coloured guiltily. “Tony must go to the shade,” he said.
“The sun is hot to the cooking-point.”
Padre Anzar paused a moment, glowering up at Loretta. “Then may
it singe the plumage of that vixen,” he answered. “She desecrates
our garden.” Another frown, and he passed on.
Padre Alonzo watched him out of sight before he again addressed
the parrot. “I fear thou must mend thy ways, Loretta,” he said. “Here
it is Christmas Day, and yet Anzar has no good words for thee. But
see,”—he held up a plump hand, displaying one of Gabrielda’s sweet
biscuits—“riotous as thou art, I have remembered. And now tell me,
what has thou given Tony?”
As though in mute answer, the parrot suddenly lowered her head
toward him, and he saw that over the grey of her feathered face was
a splash of scarlet, as if a vivid fuchsia petal had fallen there.
“Loretta!” he cried anxiously; “Loretta! thine eyes!”
She lifted her head until her beak pointed past the giant crucifix and
straight into the glaring sun.
“Buenos días,” he prompted tenderly, alarmed now at her unusual
silence and the indifference shown his offering; “Loretta, buenos
días.”
But she was settling herself upon her cross-like perch as if for the
night. “A-aw, To-o-ny! To-o-ny!” she returned with a little sleepy
croak; “buenas noches! buenas noches!”
LITTLE WATCHER
PICKED from among the litter by the slack of his neck, the coyote
whelp opened round eyes of greyish amber and blinked into the face
of the Old Woman. The Navajo looked back at him, noting with
satisfaction that he did not wriggle. Then she put him carefully to one
side and leaned over the other cubs, whimpering and crawling about
in their shallow burrow like so many helpless puppies. These she
caught up, one by one, and gave each a swift flick against a stone.
But with the baby she had chosen, she was most tender, holding him
tucked in a fold of her bright-striped blanket as she descended the
steep trail from the butte. When they came out upon the level below,
she made at once toward the goats, which were pasturing at some
distance, and from the flock drove a young female, fat, and black as
the coal streak that furnished her cooking fires. Still carrying the
coyote, she led the goat by a riata to the corral at the foot of the
mesa precipice, tied her to a cedar post, and promptly put the whelp
up to the udder for his first meal of goat’s milk.
He was a wee ball of downy, mouse-coloured fur then, with soft ears,
a head shaped like a peach, and a mere wisp of tail. At night, he
slept near the Old Woman in the dirt-covered hogan, his bed a
square of red flannel on the bottom of a great, olla-like basket which
he could neither tip over nor crawl out of. In the daytime, riding in the
crook of the aged squaw’s arm, he accompanied her to the desert,
where she went to herd, or he lay beneath a brush sun shelter while
she worked in the cornfield.
But soon, well suckled by the she-goat, he began to grow amazingly.
First he found his legs, and was able to go wabbling after his foster
mother as she lonesomely circled the corral. Next, the wabble
became a stout little trot. And now the Old Woman found no need of
holding him up for his dinner. The goat, when heavy with milk, stood
without being tied, and even uh-uh-uhed to him invitingly if he was
slow to come; while he had so lengthened and heightened that he
was able to drink without aid. He gave over the olla-like basket,
therefore, and the corral became his home. Here he showed an
increasing love for the she-goat by yelping mournfully if she started
off down the enclosure, and by barking in noisy delight at her return.
The squaw still saw him often, and stroked him much so that he
might not become hand shy.
Changed in looks he was by now. The black-tipped nose was longer
and more pointed; the greyish amber eyes were paler and narrowed
in their slits; the head was flat; the ears were upright; the hair was
not downy, but coarse to wiriness, blackish and brindled along the
back and mane, striped burro-wise across the shoulders, elsewhere
of a dusty, sunburned, tawny grey.
With his change in looks there came a change in appetite. He began
to crave other food than milk, when the Old Woman gave him to eat
of wafer bread and let him lap from a gourd shell filled from her
wicker water bottle. Later, the she-goat having gone dry, and there
being no second foster mother for him, she fed him with other things
—the bean of the mesquite and the sweetish fruit of the prickly pear.
One day, he tasted blood. The squaw brought him in a linnet, all
plump and juicy beneath its feathery coat. He lay down, holding the
tiny thing between his forefeet, and tore at it greedily, with little
throaty growls. When he was finished, she tried to pull away the bits
of plumage caught in his paws. And for the first time he showed his
teeth.
Then the Boy came. Having got the man scent before he reached
the hogan, the young prairie wolf was not frightened at the stranger
whose blanket was as bright with stripes as the Old Woman’s, and
who was otherwise very like her in appearance—except that a gay
banda kept back the hair from his forehead. On the other hand, the
Boy was startled as, on entering the low hut, he saw two eyes
burning out at him from a dim corner.
“What is it?” he asked the Old Woman, speaking in the Navajo
tongue.
“It is Little Watcher,” she answered. “For so I have named him. The
kids were all stolen away by night. When I prayed to Those Above, I
was bidden to do what my father had done—fight poison with
poison.”
With the Boy’s coming, the coyote had much meat. For every day
the Boy took bow and arrows and climbed to the mesa top. Here
grew juniper, piñon, and cedar, and here rabbits were to be found,
and reptiles, ground squirrel, buzzard, and hawk. Returning, the
hunter threw the whole of his quarry to Little Watcher, who was easy
to please but hard to satisfy. The coyote dragged the game out of
reach and then fell upon it as if he feared interruption, mumbling his
delight.
Meanwhile the Old Woman was not neglecting to train him. When
the sunrise sheen was on the desert, and the squaw, singing the
early morning song, drove the flock to its scant feeding, she took
Little Watcher along. And as the goats slowly travelled, browsing,
she taught him to follow and round them.
By the end of twelve moons, what with no long runs and plentiful
food, Little Watcher was larger than the wild of his own kind and as
big as his kinsman, the grey wolf. Now a wren was not a mouthful for
him: a snap, a swallow, and it was gone, and the amber eyes were
pleading for more. Yet for all his gorging and his hankering after
flesh, he was no less a friend to his foster mother, the she-goat, than
before, and having skirted the flock, liked to sprawl near by her, and
perhaps tease a lizard by way of entertainment.
There came a night when for the first time his strength, his training,
and his affection for her were put to the test. Enemies came.
Only the stars were shining, and the corral lay in the heavy shadow
of the precipice. But Little Watcher needed no light to tell him that
danger threatened. He lifted his muzzle to the rough path from the
mesa, perked his ears, and snuffed noiselessly. Then, as noiselessly,
he rose.
Presently, along the foot of the precipice, came several forms like his
own. He was down the wind from them, and they skulked forward
with no halts, their feet softly padding the sand. Soon the foremost
was beside the enclosure and reared upon his hind legs.
Once more Little Watcher rose—his body rigid, his head stretched
out, his brush on a stiff line with his back, and from crest to tail his
hair stood up belligerently. Then, with a shrill yelp of defiance he
leaped forward and caught the other by the throat.
His fangs were sharp, his hold was a vise. One rending pull, and the
strange coyote pitched end for end between his fellows. They
smelled the warm blood—and leaped upon him with a wrangle of
exultant cries.
Out of her hogan rushed the Old Woman waving a pine torch above
her head and shrieking to scare the intruders. They ran to a safe
distance, from where they stopped to look round. The Old Woman
did not follow them nor trouble to wake the Boy. When she had gone
among the goats to see that none was hurt or missing, she dragged
the dead coyote some rods away, and returned to give Little Watcher
a caress.
But there was no rest for Little Watcher. Still bristled, he stayed
inside the corral, now skirting the goats on fleet foot, now pausing
beside his black foster mother, but always licking his chops and
mumbling crossly.
It was then the season that follows the first rains. A haze of green lay
on the desert—a haze touched here by the yellow of sunflower and
marigold masses, there by the purple of the larkspur’s slender wand,
again by a fleck of gleaming alkali.
But all too soon that haze was gone again, melting away with the hot
kiss of the sun. Greasewood and mesquite showed the only verdure
now, and the flock found the picking poor.
So, one dawn, a burro was loaded with blankets, the cooking pottery,
and some water bottles filled at the precious spring. Then the squaw
said farewell to the Boy, who stayed to tend orchard and corn strips,
and drove her bearded company out of the cedar corral. Soon she
was well on her way, and the grey and the red sandstone ribbons of
the mesa precipice were blending and fading behind her.
Finally, when more than a score of camps had been pitched and
broken, the goats were stopped near the cottonwood-lined bed of a
dry stream. Here the burro was unloaded, the Old Woman made a
sun shelter of boughs on the bare gravel of the arroyo, and dug for,
and found, water.
Grazing was good, and the goats fattened. So did Little Watcher,
who fared well on the daily spoil of the squaw’s snares. Here, too,
almost in the shadow of the wooded Tunicha Mountains, was peace
—for a period.
Each night the goats were driven in to the line of cottonwoods,
where, bunched together, they lay down. On one side of them was
the shelter of boughs, where the Old Woman slept, rousing
occasionally to put a length of mesquite root upon her torch fire; on
the opposite side, close to his picketed foster mother, dozed Little
Watcher, flat upon his belly, his hind legs stretched out straight with
his tail, his muzzle on his forepaws. But, like the squaw, he waked
now and again, and listened—head high, ears upright and moving,
amber eyes glowing in the dark. And he often heard what the other
did not—the far-off staccato yip! yip! yip! of the prairie wolf on a
scent.
Then, for a second time during his term of guarding, enemies
appeared—boldly, in broad daylight, when the Old Woman was away
looking to her traps. It was now the season when the coyote runs in
pairs. And but two appeared, out of a patch of cactus to the mountain
side of the goats. From the cacti, they came darting down upon the
nearest of the flock—Little Watcher’s black foster mother.
But before they could reach her, a streak of tawny grey shot
between. And as the she-goat scrambled up, bleating in terror, to join
the herd, Little Watcher, all bristled from crest to tail, met the male of
the coyote pair and buried his teeth in his flank.
They fought furiously, rolling over and over, sending the sand into the
air, tearing up the greasewood, mingling their cries of pain and rage.
From the edge of the cactus patch, the female watched them, rather
indifferently, however, and with frequent hungry glances in the
direction of the goats.
The gaunt stranger was no match for the guardian of the flock. Very
soon the battle was over. Then Little Watcher looked up, and at the
female. There she was at the summit of the gentle rise, apparently
waiting, and turning her head prettily this way and that. Little Watcher
loped toward her. She let him come close, then wheeled and sped
away through the cacti. He followed.
He was back before nightfall, and lay down at the feet of the aged
Navajo, his eyes furtive, as if he were conscious of neglected duty,
his tongue lolling with a long, hard run. Alternately scolding and
caressing him, the Old Woman gave him a few laps from her gourd
shell, and presently he sought out his foster mother and rested
beside her until the goats sought the cottonwoods.
But thereafter he often left his charges to go bounding away toward
the mountains, and not even the proffering of food could tempt him
to stay. Sometimes of a night he would rise and sneak off.
Sometimes of a morning he would trot to the top of a near-by rise,
stop, look round upon the goats, give a troubled whine—and
disappear.
Then, one day, as suddenly as these excursions had begun, they
came to an end. He was returning to the flock after a long jaunt,
when, not far to his right, there appeared a moving figure, wound in a
blanket and topped with white. It was not unlike a yucca, crowned by
a cream-coloured bloom. Now, in a new posture, it was not unlike a
stumpy saguaro with one outspread branch. The curiosity of his kind
impelled him to halt. As he did so, placing his forefeet on a rock, the
better to see, he caught the familiar scent of the Boy, and saw that
the latter was holding out toward him a long, strange something
upon which the light glinted. The next moment there was a puff of
smoke—a report—and Little Watcher fell to the sand.
He lay flat upon his side for a short space, his tail limp and thin, his
eyes closed. Then, striving to rise, he found himself able only to
control his forelegs, for his hinder ones would not obey his will, and
at the small of his back was a spot that stung. This he could reach,
and he alternately snapped round at it with a doleful cry or licked it
tenderly.
It was early morning then, and he did not mind the heat. But later, as
the sun mounted and burned the sand, he pulled himself along to
some spiny buck brush, and spent the rest of the day in its meagre
shade. He knew the flock was not far, for their rank odour was borne
to him on the wind. And so, the sun gone, leaving only great strokes
of orange upon the sky and a fire-edged hill where its last light
rested, he took his way toward home, dragging his hind quarters.
Twilight was yet on the desert as he came in sight of the goats.
There they went, trailing across the purple levels to the long, black,
wavering line of cottonwoods, behind them, two herders. Faster he
pulled himself along, giving a quick little bark, now and then, that
ended in a howl. But he was not able to cross the summit of the
ridge from which he looked. And so he dropped down upon a red-
black stretch of glassy lava. For hours thirst had cruelly assailed him.
As often in times past he had drunk from rain-filled pockets in the
sandstone, he now licked feverishly at the still blistering rock.
There night found him. Between his lappings, he lay flat, being too
hurt and weary to hold himself up. His muzzle was toward the flock
and he could see the place of its lying down. For there burned the
evening fire, a dot of light on a vast sheet of blackness. He shivered,
giving puppy-like barks, as when, a whelp, he tagged his foster
mother, the she-goat; he lifted his muzzle to the stars and mourned.
Behind him, other cries answered—faintly, against the wind. He
perked his ears, listening.
Yip! yip! yip! yip! yip!—the running cry of prairie wolves on a scent!
He looked down upon the level, where sparks were flying up from
the Old Woman’s fire. Once more, rallying all his strength, he tried to
make headway toward the goats. Once more, he could not cross the
ridge. He whined helplessly.
Nearer and nearer sounded the coyote cries behind, dulling a little as
the pack descended into a draw, redoubling in strength when they
came out upon higher ground.
And now they were so near that Little Watcher could hear their short
pantings as they loped forward. And now he could see them coming
his way through the dark. With a growl, he sat up, ears laid back,
hair on end.
Yip! yip! yip! yip! yip!
Up from behind the pine-covered Tunichas rose the moon—full,
white, spreading a day-like radiance upon the great slopes and
levels of the desert.
From the brush shelter among the cottonwoods, the Old Woman and
the Boy lifted their eyes to look, and saw, silhouetted against it, at
the summit of the lava stretch, a lone coyote, seemingly seated upon
its haunches.
The squaw got to her feet, wristlets and chains tinkling, and leaned
to peer among the goats. The Boy sprang up, too, his gaze toward
the ridge top.
“Little Watcher!” he called anxiously; “Little Watcher!”
Then into the moonlight on the distant summit they saw other wolf
forms race; and as these centred to where the lone coyote sat, saw
him struggle forward to meet them. And through the desert night,
there came a shrill yelp of defiance—then a wrangle of exultant
cries.
MISSY AND I
IT all happened after Missy and I arrived from San Francisco. I was
taken to Hart’s (which, as you must know, is one of the most
perfectly appointed boarding-places for horses in New York) and
given a roomy box-stall toward the front of the stable. Across from
me was another box, just as large and loose. In it was a stylish black
gelding with docked tail and hogged mane. That was Thunderbolt.
I was very car-stiff. For though I came by express on the same train
with Missy, it had taken six days. My first day at Hart’s, as she was in
my stall, petting me and giving me nice bites of carrot (it was a
Wednesday, Wednesday being my day for carrots), a man came
down the row of stalls with Martin, the head-groom. As he turned to
open Thunderbolt’s box, he looked at me—or Missy—(his look was
admiring, anyway) and raised his hat. That was Thunderbolt’s
master.
Missy bowed back, sweetly, but gravely, and went on feeding me.
I did not know he was Thunderbolt’s master then. But later, before
Peter, one of the under-grooms, took me out for an airing (I was not
fit, Missy said, to be ridden—but I noticed Peter rode me when he
got me out of sight of the stable), I nickered over to Thunderbolt to
ask him who his visitor was.
“That is my master,” said he, putting his head over the side of his
box. “And he is one of the best masters I have ever had.”
I gave a good horse laugh at that. “One of the best,” I said. For I had
never belonged to anyone but Missy, and I think that a first-class
animal doesn’t keep changing quarters.
Thunderbolt put back his ears. “That is what I said,” he went on, “and
I’m not going to turn a hair over it, either. A change of monogram can
happen to anybody.”
“Of course,” said I, taking particular pains to show mine. It was on
my best dress-blanket, which Peter was putting on, and which was
made to order for me in Missy’s father’s woolen mills. “But how did it
happen that you—eh——”
Thunderbolt’s eyes showed a rim of white—a bad-temper sign that
no thoroughbred (and no part thoroughbred) allows himself to make.
“‘You’re as silly as a filly,’” he quoted. “A horse may just be off his
oats a little—that was my case—or home-sick.”
“I can understand that.”
“Any crow-bait could. But now that I’m here——”
“Lucky nag!” said I.
“Bet your bridle!” returned Thunderbolt. “My master comes in with his
pockets fairly sticking out with good things. Have you noticed?”
“No, but I will,” I promised.
And I did. The very next morning, here came Thunderbolt’s master
again. I put my nose out when I saw him. He stopped and smoothed
my neck. And, meanwhile, I found a pocket jammed with grass.
As Thunderbolt saw the grass disappear, he laid back his ears. “The
Dealers take you!” he grumbled.
“Don’t get ugly,” I said. “I’ll divide my tidbits with you. To-day I’ll get
an apple.”
“How do you know?” he snorted. He was careful to appear on his
best behaviour, however, for his master was looking at his hoofs.
“Monday, sweet biscuit,” I began; “Tuesday, sugar; Wednesday,
carrots; Thursday, an apple; Friday, cracked corn; Saturday, stale
bread and molasses; Sunday, marshmallows.”
“What are marshmallows?” asked Thunderbolt. “Do they grow in a
meadow?”
“They don’t,” I answered. “They come in Missy’s handkerchief. As
near as I can make out, they are sweet chunks of bran mash.”
We stopped talking then, for Missy came, dressed for a canter. She
didn’t see Thunderbolt’s master at first, for he was still stooping over.
And after I had a bite of apple, she held out a piece to Thunderbolt.
“You pretty fellow!” she said.
At that, up popped Thunderbolt’s master. And they bowed, and said
good-morning, and he pointed out Thunderbolt’s good points—deep
chest and bold eye, and Missy followed with mine—tapering ears,
broad forehead set with a star, and long, arched neck. So it was
quite a bit before I was ready to go out. Thunderbolt’s master put
Missy up and drove his trap beside us so that they could chat all the
way to the Park.
“Did you notice?” asked Thunderbolt when we were both in again
and John and Peter were grooming us.
“Did I notice what?” I asked, licking my salt.
“You haven’t good horse sense,” declared Thunderbolt. “A flea-bitten
screw with cockled hocks would see more. Didn’t you notice how
nice my master was to your Missy?”
I fairly pawed with delight. “Of course I noticed it,” I answered. And
until the next apple-day I was careful to do my part. I nosed
Thunderbolt’s master when he came in, I picked up my feet in my
best style when I went out beside his trap, and I pranced. And when
Missy wanted to turn me into the bridle-path, I passaged and
champed.
Thunderbolt’s master and Missy spent an hour in our boxes every
day. They fed us dainties and talked to each other, and he was
especially kind to me, patting me a lot and praising me. And I saw—
well, I can see farther than my muzzle—and I was as happy as a
Grand Prix winner.
And then one day—something seemed wrong with Missy. She
arrived earlier than usual, and had nothing for me. When she
entered my stall, she threw her arms around my neck. “Oh, Hector!
Hector!” she whispered, so sadly. And I saw she had a letter
crumpled up in one hand.
When Peter took off my sheet, she stepped back and looked me
over. “You dear darling!” she said, just as if she were going to cry.
“Peter, isn’t he beautiful? I’ve had him ever since he was a colt.” And
she laid her pretty cheek against me.
“Oi never seen a foiner, miss,” said Peter. “Up-headed, an’ wid a
mouth that ud drive on a t’read.”
Thunderbolt’s master came in then, and when he’d said good-
morning he sent Peter away for something and stepped over into my
box. Missy turned away from him, and he couldn’t help but see that
she wasn’t acting as usual. But I don’t believe he understood it any
better than I did. For he looked puzzled, and then he raised his hat
again.
“Do you know,” he said, “it’s just occurred to me that I’ve been very
remiss. I’ve never even introduced myself properly to you. And I
haven’t the pleasure of your name, either.”
“If people are fond of horses——” began Missy. She fell to patting
my nose.
“My name is England,” went on Thunderbolt’s master, “Edward
England.”
Instantly, I felt Missy’s fingers tighten, and I saw her face grow white.
“England!” she said under her breath; “Edward England!”
She was standing on my off side now, and Thunderbolt’s master
could not see her. “I presume it’s a name you’re not unfamiliar with,”
he went on again. “But don’t mistake me for dad. He’s been
manipulating wool lately, and the press keeps pretty close track of
him.” And he laughed.
“Yes—I—I have heard,” answered Missy, slowly, and as Peter led me
toward the runway, she followed—without another word. She walked
unevenly, as a horse goes when he’s got the blind staggers.
I was sorry she hadn’t told him who we were. For I must say that, on
the Coast, no family stands better than the Sanborns. But Missy was
changed—something had happened to her.
The very next day, something happened to me. Peter came down
the stalls with a strange groom behind him and stopped at my box.
For the swish of a tail, I didn’t think anything of that, for we often
have new grooms. But when Peter put on my halter, and then my
hood and dress-blanket, and the man took my leading-strap, I knew I
was to be taken away somewhere.
I felt so startled and excited that I am sure I misbehaved. But the
groom talked kindly to me, and Peter slapped me on the flank, and
so I tried to go quietly. I think the other horses knew I was leaving—
that strange groom gave them the hint. They looked around at me,
and one whinnied to ask me what was the matter. They were all stall
boarders, and of course I didn’t know them. And I was too unhappy
to answer, anyway. For Thunderbolt was out in the trap, and, if I was
going, I could not tell him good-bye.
“What if I’m sold?” I kept saying to myself as I went down the runway
and out to the street. “What if I’m sold?” I shivered, for all my
covering. “Oh, Missy, you wouldn’t do that!”
Then another terrible thought: Is Missy going to get an auto? But that
couldn’t be—Missy hates autos.
Soon enough, I found out what had happened. The strange groom
led me toward the Hudson, then north again—I am never mistaken in
directions—and, finally, into a good-sized stable that stood midway
of a block. Here, I was led upstairs—and into a standing-stall.
It made me cross, and I tried my hind shoes on the mats in short
order (a blooded horse is expected to be nervous and impatient at
times). But the place was clean and comfortable, and the double line
of horses were, I must say, a very decent lot—not show horses, but
good of their kind. All were fresh littered and well blanketed, and
seemed contented enough. “This is where I’m going to live, I guess,”
I thought to myself. Pretty soon I was sure of it. For here came Missy
in her riding clothes.
“It’s all very nice,” I heard her tell the strange groom. “And I want you
to give him every attention.” She opened one hand. There was a
green piece of paper in it, and he bobbed his head as he took it.
Then she opened her other hand—and there was some cracked
corn. So it was on a Friday that I came to my new quarters.
It was three days later before I saw Thunderbolt and his master. We
all met in the Park.
“They tell me Hector’s left Hart’s,” said Mr. England to Missy. “Now,
Miss Sanborn,—you see I’ve found out who you are—it really wasn’t
fair of you to go without letting me know about it. We’re both wool
people, you must remember.” He spoke jokingly; but he looked a
little worried.
Missy straightened in her stirrups (she rides cross-saddle) and
tightened my reins. I felt them tremble. “I’ve moved,” she said, “and
so, of course, Hector had to come nearer me.”
“I see—of course. Where are you now?”
“At Hawley’s, uptown—a nice stable.”
“Oh, yes.” (Mr. England looked hard at the dog’s head on the butt of
his whip.)
There was an awkward silence. Then, “Good-afternoon,” said Missy,
and went on.
It didn’t take me long to realise one thing about my new home. It was
not so good as the old; in the main comforts it was, but not in little
ones. We got two groomings instead of three; the litter was not deep,
as at Hart’s; we were not watered so often; there was no more briny
hay, and no flaxseed jelly. Several times, too, I saw delivery horses
coming up a runway from the basement, and being put to heavy
wagons. The horses on my floor, when they went out, were wickedly
checked to make them hold up their heads.
Their treatment of me was always the perfection of good stable
manners, and among the whole lot there was only one that
especially irritated me. He was a bay with black points, one of those
under-sized, jack-rabbity little nuisances called a Shetland.
“My! what airs!” he exclaimed one day as he was passing me in his
governess’s cart. “I presume you’re much too fine to take hay-tea
with the rest of us.”
“Don’t class yourself with the others,” I answered. “You remind me of
nothing so much as a flea drawing a wash-basket.”
After that brush, he let me alone. And I tried to be contented at
Hawley’s. I must say that Missy was kinder than ever to me. On
apple days I got several, and on Saturdays a double quantity of stale
bread and molasses. So why kick?
But very soon my dainties began to dwindle, and often Missy gave
me none at all, so that I lost track of the days. And I noticed, when
we went out for our regular gallop, that Missy never hummed to
herself as we went along, or stopped to let me crop a little green, or
nodded pleasantly to the mounted police we passed. She rode
slowly, with her head down, or set me going at a run.
Then, when I had been at the new stable not more than two weeks,
a strange groom came down the stalls to me for a second time.
Again my hood and dress-blanket were put on, and I was led down
and out. The groom was a hang-dog looking fellow. Still, I went with
a prancing step. For I knew what it meant. I was going back to Martin
and my box-stall!
But I wasn’t. We turned north again, going up a cobbled street that
rang with clanging cars. Overhead, the Elevated roared and banged
till my ears ached. And everywhere, on sidewalks and in the street,
herds of noisy children shrieked and raced. My heart began to fail
me. Under my blanket, I broke out in a cold sweat.
Too soon I knew the worst. Down a crowded street we turned, going
eastward until I could see, ahead, a blur of green that was the Park.
Then I was led into a low, ill-smelling, steaming building, around the
door of which slouched a half-dozen rough-looking men, all smoking
—smoking, mind you, in a stable! They looked me over as the groom
brought me to a stand. And their eyes actually rolled at sight of me. It
was plain they were not used to seeing my kind there.
They were not. Down a runway I went, and into a cellar, where there
were fifty or so horses, all looking around and moving restlessly, as if
they wanted feed or water. And here I was led into a narrow stall with
little bedding—and that bad—and a sour feed-box. Oh, what an
awful night I spent! My dress-blanket had been taken off, and my
sheet not put on. So the mosquitoes tormented me every minute. But
I was not the worst off. Near me were horses that had plucked
manes and banged tails, and no sheets. They couldn’t defend
themselves, and rubbed from side to side in their stalls in a very
panic of pain. That terrible banging, hour after hour, and the foul
state of my stall kept me from lying down. The groom had given me
no water when he brought me in. And until morning I suffered terribly.
I plucked up courage when I was groomed and watered, though I
must say I could not eat all of my oats. Somehow or other, my
appetite was gone. But Missy came, and we went out together. Not
as I would have liked, for my coat was not so shining as usual, and
some of my mane hung over the wrong side. And, worse than all,
some straws were sticking in my tail!
Missy noticed nothing, not even the howls of the children in the
street. In the Park she did not rein me to drink at the stone troughs
along the bridle-path, or to crop. But there was one thing that, more
than anything else, took the spirit out of me. Going south beside the
East Drive, I saw ahead of us—Thunderbolt coming! Instantly, I
neighed. Missy looked up, and then, as quick as she could, whirled
me and started back, circling the reservoir the other way. So I did not
have a chance to see my friend, or Mr. England. I went into the
stable with my head hanging.
Things went along that way for a week. Meanwhile, I was not so well
as usual. I caught a cold, for the stalls were hot and the air in the
street chilled me to the bones. And I coughed, and my throat got so
sore that I quidded my feed and splashed the water instead of
drinking. I think Missy saw how it was. For one day, as we were
going along, I felt a drop of water fall upon my withers—then another,
and another. The sun was shining, there were no clouds. I turned my
head a little. It was Missy—in tears!
I was so unhappy that I snapped at the next horse that went by.
But that morning ended happily, at least for me. Rounding a bend,
we came close to a drive. And there was Thunderbolt and his
master. I was so excited that I interfered.
They seemed as pleased as I at the meeting. But—Missy did not.
Missy was nervous—she telegraphed that down the reins.
“Miss Sanborn,” said Mr. England, half as if he were going to scold,
“you’ve been neglecting to ride lately.”
“Oh, no,” declared Missy; “I ride. But possibly not so long as usual.
You see, I’m—I’m very busy.”
“Doubling your painting lessons?”
“No—n—no.”
“Ah,” said Mr. England, watching her narrowly, I thought. That was all
he said. Then Missy bowed, and we galloped away.
I had had no chance to gossip with Thunderbolt, for we were not
permitted to stand close or to touch noses. But I did notice that he
looked me over carefully—and then his upper lip curled like the
jockeys on my saddle.
But I forgot his treatment. For soon I had worse luck than ever, and
much poorer care. For the third time, a strange groom came for me. I
knew better than to expect a return to a good stable. And I was right.
We went two blocks toward the Hudson, and through a wide gate
leading into a lot—a lot filled with wagons and little shacks of the
kind that Chinamen live in on the Coast. It took me a minute to
realise what was going to happen. “It can’t be!” I said to myself. “Oh,
Missy wouldn’t!” But it happened. I was led into a dark stall in one of
those shanties!
There was a rough-coated lot in that yard, not society for a horse like
me. Some were scrawny and spindle-shanked, with dull eyes and
staring jackets. Some were stout and blocky—beer-jerking stock, but
not nearly as well kept as brewery horses. Some showed pedigree.
But these were poor, old, broken-down, mutilated things, badly used
on pedler’s wagons. The three in my shanty bolted their food as if
they never expected to get any more. It was all bloating stuff—chaff
and straw—and about as palatable as hoof-dressing. As for
grooming, none of us got any. It was just a jerk or two of the curry-
comb, and it was over. And this among a long-haired lot that looked
as if they had never known a blanket!
I could see, when Missy came, that she didn’t like the place. And on
one of her visits I found out just how she felt. It made me decide to
put my best foot foremost, to act spirited even if I didn’t feel like it,
and to stop biting my crib. She came to my head, a sugar lump in
one hand. And as I took the dainty, she held me about the withers
with her pretty arms. “Oh, Hector! Hector!” she whispered. “You’re all
that’s left. I can’t do without you—I can’t! I can’t!”
Dear Missy!
We didn’t see Thunderbolt or his master for weeks after that. Missy
avoided them. I knew it, and it added to my unhappiness. For I had
seen how Mr. England liked me—and Missy, too. And I missed the
nice things I always found in his pockets. And though I went out
poorly groomed, I wouldn’t have minded Thunderbolt’s snorting. I’ve
got better blood in me than he has any day. I know that by his cobby
build.
Those were days when I often felt teardrops on my withers. And I
couldn’t help but see that Missy was faring no better than I. Then I
began to look and look and look for Mr. England. “Missy’s not getting
all she needs to eat any more than I am,” I said to myself. And I was
determined that if ever Mr. England gave me an apple or a sweet
cake again, she was to have it.
Well, one day as we were posting along close to the West Drive, who
should I spy but Mr. England and Thunderbolt with the trap—Martin
on the rumble. I whinnied, and Missy gave me a smart rap for it that
made me fairly dance. But neither Martin nor Mr. England saw me.
As for Thunderbolt, if he did, he gave no sign, but stepped out with
his high knee-action, making a good pace uptown.
It may have been acting like a skate. Certainly, I had never treated
Missy that way before. But I decided to do it on the instant, and I
took the blow she gave me as an excuse. For, with the bits held so
that the curb-port couldn’t hurt me too much, I started to run with all
my might, being careful not to stumble and make Missy come a
cropper. Out upon the driveway I raced, and straight for Thunderbolt!