“Of course not. Midnight? Impossible. Why, that horse is worth five thousand dollars. He couldn’t have done it.” Tommy went back home very slowly. That night he sat beside Manuel’s candle and cleaned and oiled a sawed-off .25-30 rifle, inherited from the man who slept on the hill. Salazar smoked lazily and watched him through drooping lids. The boy finished his task and leaned forward on the stool, staring at the tiny flame, the weapon across his knees. Of what avail to shoot Midnight? Of course it would be easy. Tommy had acquired some degree of skill by blowing the heads off chickens whenever any were desired for the dinner-table, and he felt assured that at two hundred yards he could pick off the stallion with one pressure of his finger. It would be mere child’s work to distinguish Midnight from the mares, even on the murkiest night. But, after all--had the stallion done the killing? He had only Manuel’s experience and suspicions to go on. Moreover, if he took punishment into his own hands they might throw him into a jail. Midnight was worth five thousand dollars: assuredly Mr. Chalmers would cast Tommy out into the world to shift for himself. He put the rifle back under his bunk. Very discreetly Tommy entered the horse pasture at sunup--he had been unable to sleep for scheming--and made his way down the mile-long fence toward the corner where the mares usually grazed at that hour. He had a six-shooter in his pocket for an emergency, but he hoped that he would not use it. Midnight sighted him and stood rigid a full minute, twenty paces in advance of the mares, gazing at the boy. He was a regal animal; Tommy thought he had never seen so glorious a horse. Then the stallion advanced with mincing steps, his head bobbing, the ears laid back. He sidled nearer, without haste, whinnying softly. The boy waited until he was a dozen feet distant, then threw himself flat and rolled under the barbed-wire fence. With a rending scream Midnight reared and plunged for him, his forefeet battering the ground where Tommy had fallen. He tore at the earth in discomfiture and wrath, and raved up and down on the other side of the fence, his nostrils flaring, his eyes a glare of demoniacal hate. Tommy surveyed him in deathly quiet. The dark came warm, with puffs of hot wind, so that the Tumbling K men reviled the discomfort joyously, since it presaged rain. So long as the cold nights endured there could be no relief. Tommy slipped from the bunkhouse for a breath of air, though it was past bedtime and they had told him to turn in. “Apache!” he called in a low tone, gliding into the stall. The jack cocked his monstrous ears and listened, knowing well the voice. Tommy put a halter over his head and opened the stall door. It was gnawed and scarred by Apache’s teeth and hoofs, and the boy wrenched it from the hinges and laid it aslant on the ground. “You done bust your way out, Apache,” he whispered. “You hear me, you ol’ devil?”