I begun to git scairt. “Speak ’r no speak,” I says to myself, “I’m goin’ to move up.”
That very minute, things come to a haid!
We was all three turned south, when ’long come a goggle-eyed smarty in one of them snortin’ Studebakers. The second the smarty seen Mace was pretty, he blowed his horn to make her look at him. Wal! that roan turned tail and come nigh t’ doin’ a leap-frog over me. The skunk in the buzz-wagon tooted again. And we was off!
We took the return trip short cut. First we hit the brush, Mace’s hoss breakin’ trail, mine a clost second, the police gent number three. Then we hit open country, where they’s allus a lot of young fellers and gals battin’ balls over fly-nets. The crowd scattered, and we sailed by, takin’ them nets like claim-jumpers. I heerd a whistle ahaid oncet, and seen a fat policeman runnin’ our way, wavin’ his arms. Then we went tearin’ on,–no stops fer stations–’round the lake, down a road that was thick with keerages,–beatin’ ev’rybody in sight–then into timber again.
It was that takin’ to the woods the second time that done it. In Central Park is a place where they have ducks and geese (keep the Mayor in aigs, I heerd). Wal, just to east, like, of that place, is a butte, all rocks and wash-outs. The blue roan made that butte slick as a Rocky Mountain goat. (We’d shook off the police gent.) At the top, she pitched plumb over, losin’ Mace so neat it didn’t more ’n jar her. My hoss got down on his knees, and I come offen my perch. Then both broncs went on.
I was winded, so I didn’t speak up fer a bit. Fact is, I didn’t exac’ly know what to remark. Oncet I thought I’d say, “You ridin’ a diff’rent hoss t’day, Mace?” ’r “That roan of yourn can lope some.” But both bein’ kinda personal, I kept still.
But pretty soon, I got a hunch. “I just knowed that blamed muley saddle ’d butt me off some day,” I says. “It was shore accomodatin’, though, to let me down right here.”
She didn’t say nothin’. She was settin agin a tree, another of them two-mile looks in her eyes, and she was gazin’ off west.
I lent her way just a little. “What you watchin’, honey?” I ast.
She blushed, awful cute.