his ranges as well as our gunners, and he was as quick on his feet as our Carpentier. I observed him often. Christophe--the man who passed just now--our chief herdsman, who had taught me to ride with our beasts when I was ten--Christophe told me that he was descended from a yellow cow of those days that had chased us once into the marshes. ‘He kicks just like her,’ said Christophe. ‘He can side-kick as he jumps. Have you seen, too, that he is not deceived by the jacket when a boy waves it? He uses it to find the boy. They think they are feeling him. He is feeling them always. He thinks, that one.’ I had come to the same conclusion. Yes--the creature was a thinker along the lines necessary to his sport; and he was a humorist also, like so many natural murderers. One knows the type among beasts as well as among men. It possesses a curious truculent mirth--almost indecent but infallibly significant----” Monsieur Voiron replenished our glasses with the great wine that went better at each descent. “They kept him for some time in the yards to practise upon. Naturally he became a little brutal; so Christophe turned him out to learn manners among his equals in the grazing lands, where the Camargue joins the Crau. How old was he then? About eight or nine months, I think. We met again a few months later--he and I. I was riding one of our little half-wild horses, along a road of the Crau, when I found myself almost unseated. It was he! He had hidden himself behind a wind-break till we passed, and had then charged my horse from behind. Yes, he had deceived even my little horse! But I recognised him. I gave him the whip across the nose, and I said: ‘Apis, for this thou goest to Arles! It was unworthy of thee, between us two.’ But that creature had no shame. He went away laughing, like an Apache. If he had dismounted me, I do not think it is I who would have laughed--yearling as he was.” “Why did you want to send him to Arles?” I asked.