He was silent for a while, thinking hard for a means of escape from his dilemma. When he spoke at last he was smiling good-naturedly. "Ye're right," he said, rubbing his hands briskly over the long hair of the breeches; "I did say that very thing. An' I'm a man o' my word. But it seems to me," and he leaned forward confidently, "thet ye ain't made exac'ly the best pick thet ye could." The little girl sat up with a new interest. "Now I've got sunthin' here," continued the cattleman, "thet'll jes make yer eyes pop." He got up, went to a box that, nailed against the wall above the stove, served him for a cupboard, and took out a long, slender package. "Ye've got more horses than ye can shake a stick at," he began again; "ponies an' plow teams an' buggy nags, but ye ain't got nuthin' like what I'm 'bout to show ye."
Slowly and impressively he began to undo the package, keeping one eye covertly on the little girl all the while. She was beside him, rigid with expectancy. When many thicknesses of thin brown paper had been unrolled, he stepped back, unwrapped a last cover, and, with a proud wave of his hand, revealed to her delighted gaze a big, thick, red-and-white candy cane.
"Now, what do ye think o' that?" he demanded.
An exclamation of wonder came from her parted lips. She moved nearer without answering.
"As I said," he went on, "y' 've got all kinds of horses; but when in yer life hev ye hed anything like this?" He laid it gently on the table, and folded his arms solemnly. "Thet came all the way from Yankton," he said, as if recounting the history of some famous work of art. "I bought it down thar of a feller, an' paid some little money fer it." He did not add that she was in his thoughts when he bought it. "Now I'm going out to hitch up an' take ye home," he continued. "While I'm gone, ye make up yer mind which ye want—" He started for the door, but paused half-way. "—which ye want," he repeated, lowering his voice, "Sultan—er thet beautiful cane?"
When he was gone the little girl stole closer to the table and gazed rapturously down. Never in her life, as the cattleman truly said, had she seen anything like it. No horse, on a prairie overrunning with horses, could compare with it. She put out her hand and touched its crooked head, almost reverently, with one small finger.
The cattleman harnessed a span of fat mules at the barn, and led them into their places on each side of a wagon tongue. All the while he talked out loud to himself, with occasional guffaws of hearty laughter and sharp commands to the team. Despite his merriment, however, he peered back at the shanty uneasily from time to time; so that it was a full quarter of an hour before the mules were hitched to the whiffletrees and ready for their journey. Then he climbed to the seat and circled toward the door.
She was not in sight when he brought up with a loud whoa, and getting down, the lines in one hand and a black-snake in the other, he advanced to the sill and looked in. "Any passengers goin' south?" he cried cheerily, cracking the whip.
"Me," answered a voice from behind the table, and the little girl, fagged but blissful, came forward smilingly, a long, brown-paper package clasped tightly to her breast.