He watched the vehicle roll out into the trail. And though he did not understand, though the seriousness of it all was denied him, he nevertheless remained close to the fence a long time; long after the phaeton had passed from view, long after the sound of the mare's paddling feet had died away, he stood there, ears cocked, eyes wide, tail motionless, in an attitude of receptivity, spiritual absorption, as one flicked with unwelcome premonitions. CHAPTER V LONELINESS Pat's mistress was gone. He realized it from his continued disappointed watching for her at the fence; he realized it from the utter absence out of life of the sweets he had learned to love so well; and he realized it most of all from the change which rapidly came over the Mexican hostler. Though he did not know it, Miguel had been instructed, and in no mistakable language, to take good care of him, and, among other things, to keep him healthily supplied with sweets. But Miguel was not interested in colts, much less in anything that meant additional labor for him, and so Pat was made to suffer. Yet in this, as in all the other things, lay a wonderful good. He was made to know that he was not wholly a pampered thing--was made to feel the other side of life, the side of bitterness and disappointment, the side at times of actual want. And this continued denial of wants, of needs, occasionally, hardened him, as his earlier experiences had hardened him, toughened him for the struggles to come, brought to him that which is good for all youth--realization that life is not a mere span of days with sweets and comforts for the asking, but a time of struggle, a battle for supremacy, and it is only through the battle that one grows fit and ever more fit for the good of the All. Not the least of his trials was great loneliness. One day was so very like another. Regularly each morning, after seeking out his favorite corner in the corral, he would see the sun step from the mountain-tops, ascend through a cool morning, pour down scorching midday rays, descend through a tense afternoon, and drop from view in the chill of evening. Always he would watch this thing, sometimes standing, other times reclining, but ever conscious of the dread monotony of it all. Nothing happened, nobody came to caress him, no one paid him the least attention. A forlorn colt, a lonely colt, doubly so for lack of a mother, he spent long days in moody contemplation of an existence that irked.