"We'll go," he said with decision. "Get ready. Maybe there is some mistake." "Don't," she begged, "there is no mistake. I knew it would happen; I felt it." "By Jove, I hope it's not true; I was beginning to think a good deal of that boy myself." Constance was passing through the door on her way to her room. She turned and blazed at him. "Then why didn't you talk that way before?" She disappeared, and left him staring after her, through the open door. An hour later a buckboard, driven by a silent Mexican, rolled down the Sky Top canon, bound for the northern trail. Curly finished his breakfast, and then went out in search of his horse, which presently he found standing dejectedly, close where it had been left, apparently anchored by the reins thrown down over its head and dragging on the ground. Curly seated himself on the ground near by and addressed his misanthropic steed in tones of easy familiarity. "Pinto," said he, "you remind me of a heap of folks I know. You think them reins holds you, but they don't. They ain't tied to nothing. You're just like them, hitched tight to a fool notion, that's all. If I don't take your bridle off, you'll stand there and starve to death, like a good many fool folks I've heard of. You've got to eat, Pinto." Curly arose and with a meditative finger traced the outlines of the continental maps displayed on Pinto's parti-colored flanks. That cynical beast, with small warning, kicked at him viciously. "Oh, there you go!" remonstrated Curly; "can't you get tired enough to be decent? Git on away--_vamos_!" He stripped off the bridle from Pinto's head, and again gave him a friendly slap, as he drove him off to graze, without any precaution to prevent his running away. As for himself, Curly lay down upon the ground, his face on his arm, and was soon fast asleep in the glaring sun. Pinto, misanthropic as he was, did not abuse the confidence reposed in him. He walked off to a trickle of water which came down from a mountain spring, and grazed steadily upon the coarse mountain grass, but every now and then, under the strange bond which sometimes exists between horse and man, wandered around to look inquiringly at his sleeping master, whom he would gladly have brained upon occasion, but upon whom, none the less, he relied blindly.