My new master nodded and then stood directly in front. I tried to look away, but his eyes drew mine in spite of me, and when he backed off, I followed, though he exerted no pressure on the bit. There was nothing hard and there was nothing mean in those eyes; a devil lurked in Sloan’s. Chappo’s were clear and very good-natured, yet oddly compelling. “That’s all right,” he said. “Now we know each other, me and you, Neutria.” He pulled my head around by the cheek of the bridle and next moment was atop. I remained motionless. The grip of his knees was curiously at variance with his bulk: somehow that grip raised a doubt in my mind that I could shed him. Next second I was pitching, more from force of habit than from any wish to hurt this youth. What was the matter? No spurs gored my sides; I felt no sting of quirt. Instead, Chappo merely swayed in the saddle and he whooped me on to further effort, hitting my shoulders gleefully with his hat. This was too much--a wight of one hundred and twenty pounds to make game of me! I paused for breath and to gather strength. “Hey, you ain’t quitting?” he inquired. “Wipe her up, li’l’ feller. Fly at it.” After that it was imperative I should do my best--Sloan could never have kept his seat when I let myself loose to his challenge. Every trick his brutality had taught me I employed, and only once did Chappo waver. He was riding on his spurs now, yet he had to grab desperately for the horn; but he righted himself with a laugh and renewed his yelling. At last I was compelled to stop. “You’re shore a dandy, Neutria,” he panted. “Let’s call it an even break.” That suited me admirably. It would have been a shame to injure the boy. I never pitched with Chappo again. He was always kind to me, save once only. That was when he placed the Box C on my left hip with a red-hot iron. It pained horribly, but I realized that all horses had to go through this ordeal and that Chappo did not mean to be brutal. What times we had that summer and autumn! It was a year of frequent rains, and horses and cattle were sleek and fat and rollicking. Chappo and I would go out from camp twice each week and prowl the mountains the livelong day. Perhaps a long-eared calf would be roused up--he is one that has escaped branding--and my master would settle himself and take down his rope even as I flashed in pursuit, over rocks and brush, down cañons’ sides, up cliffs, shooting through defiles. It is something to be a mountain horse, though it is I who say it; no other horse in the world could have carried Chappo at full speed where I carried him after mavericks. And he never faltered. “Wherever you put your doggone feet is good enough for me, Neutria,” he said once, at the bottom of a perilous descent.