"Well, I will go down with you, and stay as long as I can. Abby, of course, will be there all the while. The colts are to be broken in next week--that will be worth seeing; and no doubt the flowers will be beautiful." I said I would like to--though indeed I did not at all care. I was not thinking of flowers. After father had left the house I went up-stairs to my room; and, first locking the door and drawing the curtains close because I did not want even my climbing white rose to see me, I took out my new bracelet, and clasped it--one gold band around each wrist with its chain swinging between--and closed my eyes and, holding my wrists out, drew them apart until the chain jerked and stopped them--to see just how it felt! CHAPTER IV THE FIRST DAY IN COURT As father had said, the breaking of the colts was well worth seeing. The first day I arrived at the ranch, clinging to the top rail of the corral, I watched the glossy huddled flanks and shoulders and tossing heads of the youngsters crowding together in the middle of the inclosure, quivering with apprehension of the man approaching with his rope; until, the man being unendurably near, one and another would break and wheel, and trot with high head, whinnying, around the corral close to the fence. Then, when Perez had one fast, one end of his rope around the glossy neck, and slowly working toward him, hand over hand, finally touched the velvety head, how the creature started, swerved, tried to back, and felt the jerk of the halter. It made me think of the way the prisoner had started when the policeman touched his arm. At first their nervous, proud, restive airs reminded me constantly of that strange person; and not only the colts, but some times it was some drifting shadow of cloud, some color or some sound, that inexplicably brought him up to mind; and I would plague myself with wondering what was going on in the city, and what was to become of him. But as the days passed and no newspapers came from the city--at least I saw none--and no letters to remind me of what was happening there, I recalled him less and less distinctly. He remained in my mind but as a sort of dream; things about me reminded me only of themselves, and I became absorbed in picking out a new saddle-horse, and searching the meadows over to see if the Mariposa lilies were coming up this year in their accustomed places.