Gaining the clearing, he decided to try out the other horse with the black. He realized that the aged mare was unfit, even though in the last hour she had appeared greatly to improve, and he must accordingly match up a team. So he unhitched her and swung the mate into place. He met with disagreeable surprise, however. The black would not pull with this horse. Instead, he held himself quietly at rest, gazing about sleepily over the landscape, a trick of his, as Felipe had learned, when quietly rebelling. Felipe looked at him a moment, but did not try to force him with tongue or lash. For he was coming to understand this horse, and, concluding that sooner or later, under proper treatment, he would probably accept duty with any mate, determined to abandon work for the day. Whereupon he unhitched the horses and led them all back into the corral. Then he put up the bars and set out in the direction of the settlement.
Which ended Pat’s second great lesson at the hand of man. He was sore and somewhat stiff from the struggle, but he did not fret long over his condition, for he soon awoke to the presence of that beside him in the corral which caused him to forget himself completely. It was the worn-out structure of skin and bones who had befriended him in his hour of trial. He gazed at her a moment, then approached and fell to caressing her, showing in this attention his power to forget self–aches, sores, troubles–in his affection and gratitude toward all things warranting affection and gratitude.
CHAPTER X
THE STRANGER AGAIN
Meantime, Helen was becoming desperate over her loss. Unwilling to accept the theory of her household, which was that Pat had been stolen by a band of organized thieves and ere this was well out of the neighborhood and probably the county, she had held firmly to her original idea, viz., that the horse was in the possession of his rightful owners, and so could not be far out of the community. Therefore, the morning following his disappearance, having with sober reflection lightened within her the seriousness of it all, she had set out in confident search for him, mounted on her brown saddler. But though she had combed the town and the trails around the town, quietly interviewing all such teamsters and horsemen as might by any chance know something about it, yet in answer to her persistent inquiries all she had received was a blank shake of the head or an earnest expression of willingness to assist her. So, because she had continued her search for three days without success, inquiring and peering into every nook and corner of the community, she finally had come to regard her quest as hopeless, and to become more than ever an image of despair.
The evening of the fourth day there was a dance. It was one of the regular monthly affairs, and because Helen was a member of the committee she felt it her duty to attend. One of the young men, accompanied by his mother and sister, drove out for her, but she left the house with reluctance and a marked predisposition not to enjoy herself. But she forgot this when she presently beheld the young man from the East whom she had encountered on the mesa. He was standing close beside a rather frail little woman, undoubtedly his mother, who with the matrons of the town was seated near a fireplace watching the dancers. He was introduced. Later they sat out one of his numbers alone together in a corner behind some potted palms. In the course of their conversation Helen informed him of the disappearance of her horse, and asked him, as she asked everybody she met now, if he knew anything or had heard anything concerning the loss. The young man knew nothing of the great disappearance, however, though he did offer it as his belief that a horse of Pat’s obvious value could not long remain in obscurity. This was encouraging, and Helen felt herself become hopeful again. But when he offered his services in the search, as he did presently, she felt not only hopeful again, but somehow quite certain now that it would all be cleared up. For there was that in this young gentleman which caused confidence. What she told him, however, was that she was grateful for his offer, and should be greatly pleased to have him with her.
And thus it was that, on the morning of the fifth day, Helen Richards and Stephen Wainwright–the young man’s name–together with two of Helen’s close friends, were riding slowly across the mesa, alert for any combination in harness which might reveal the lost Pat. Helen and Stephen were well in the lead, and Helen had broken the silence by addressing Stephen as a native, recalling their first meeting. Whereupon the young man, smiling quietly, had wanted to know why; but after she had explained that it was because he had enlisted himself in the search for a horse, adding that in doing so he had conformed with one of the unwritten laws of the country, he still confessed himself in the dark. This had been but a moment before, and she now settled herself to explain more fully.
“A horse is, or was, our most valued property,” she began. “I reckon the past tense is better–though we’ll never quite live down our interest in horses.” She smiled across at him. “Long ago,” she went on, “in the days of our Judge Lynch, you know, a stolen horse meant a hanged man–or two or three–as not infrequently happened. But all that is history now. Yet the feeling remains. And whenever one of our horses disappears–it is rare now–we all take it more or less as a personal loss. In your willingness to help find Pat, therefore, you declare yourself one of us–and are gladly admitted.”
He rode along in silence. “Why was the feeling so intense in the old days?” he inquired, after a time.
“It was due to physical conditions,” she replied–“the geography of the country. Water-holes were few and very far apart, and to get from one to another often entailed a journey impossible to a man without a horse. To steal his horse, therefore, was to deprive him of his sole means of getting to water–practically to deprive him of his life. If he didn’t die of thirst, which frequently he did, at best it was a very grave offense. It isn’t considered so now–not so much so, at any rate–unless in the desert wastes to the west of us. Yet the feeling still lurks within us, and a stolen horse is a matter that concerns the whole community.”