LARK RUSTLES A BOY
On the brow of the hill the horse Lark was riding stepped aside from the trail, walked to the very edge of the rim and stood there, gravely looking down into the valley. Where he stood the young grass was cut and crushed into the loose soil with shod hoofprints closely intermingled, proof that the slight detour was a matter of habit born of many pausings there at gaze. Except on pitch-black nights or when he rode in haste, Lark never failed to stop and drink his fill of the wide valley below,—in his opinion the most beautiful spot on earth.
Straight down, a good four hundred feet below him, lay the bottomland known the country over as Meadowlark Basin, where old Bill Larkin had his stronghold in the old days. Across the wide meadows the Little Smoky River went whirling past like a millrace, the piled hills crowded close upon the farther bank. At the head of the Basin, nearly a mile away, other hills shouldered one another and the rumbling storm clouds just above; beyond all, the mountains with white peaks and purple canyons gashed the dark splotches of wooded slopes.
"Is down there—where we're goin'?" The small boy sitting within the circle of Lark's arms, his small legs spread across the saddle in front of Lark's long legs, pointed a soft, brown finger toward the valley below.
"You betchuh." One of Lark's arms snuggled the boy closer.
"Is all them horses—your horses?"
"Bet they are. Ain't they purty down there? Look at all them spraddly colts, son. Ain't they the purtiest sight you ever saw?"
"O-oh, one colt kicked its—its mamma!" The boy slapped his hands together and chuckled. "Can—can I have one colt—to ride?"
"Bet you can! Ain't it purty down there? Look at that green patch over next the river. That's lucerne. And up above there is the spuds, a different green yet. And that's timothy and clover on beyond. Listen, son. Hear 'em? Meddalarks and frogs singin' a contest. Frogs is ahead, got all the best of it so far, 'cause they sing all night and the meddalarks lays off till daybreak."
"Can—can I have a frog—"