"Wait until I find Joyce! If he thinks I'm going to put up with such work he's mistaken. I'll have to ride old Rock. What will Jones say when he finds those colts are gone? And how can we ever round 'em up again?"
"It isn't your fault. Why doesn't he come and take care of his own stock?"
"Something's happened, I suppose. He wouldn't stay off like this for nothing. I ought really to go after the colts instead of the cow."
Rob went down to the corral, and soon Harry saw him riding back, not on Rock, but on the sorrel with the ring-and-arrow brand.
"I'd forgotten we'd left this horse down in the corral," he said, looking much relieved. "Well, now I shan't be gone a week, as I expected to if I rode old Rock."
Harry started to speak and then changed her mind; there could be nothing wrong in Jones's secrets about the horses if Rob did not disapprove of them. Doubtless there were plenty of sorrels with the ring-and-arrow brand, and after keeping this one so long for Jones, there could be no harm in Rob's getting some service from it.
So, instead of telling Rob about Garnett, she said, "That's a pretty good pony, isn't it? About how old is he?"
Rob had just mounted. "About six or seven years, I should think," he said, as he rode off.
He was gone all day, but he found neither the horses nor his cow.
"I'll go out to-morrow," he said at supper, "and stay until I find some of these strays."