Rejecting the heavy shoes, as unmeet for waxed floors, and the shinguards, he rolled the rest of the uniform in his slicker and tied it behind his saddle. Then he rubbed his chin.
“Huh! That’s a true saying, too. I am getting old. Youth turns to youth. Buck up, Jeff, you old fool! Have some pride about you and just a little old horse-sense.”
Yet he unhobbled Grasshopper, who might then be trusted to find his way to Rainbow in about three days. He went to the corral and tossed a rope on snorting Copperhead. “No; I won’t go!” he said, as he slipped on the bridle. “Just to uncock old Copperhead, I’ll make a little horse-ride to Hospital Springs and look through the stock.” He threw on the saddle with some difficulty—Copperhead was fat and frisky. “She don’t want to see you, Jeff—an old has-been like you! No, no; I’d better not go. I won’t! There, if I didn’t leave that football stuff on the saddle! I’ll take it off. It might get lost. Whoa, Copperhead!”
Copperhead, however, declined to whoa on any terms. His eyes bulged out; he reared, he pawed, he snorted, he bucked, he squealed, he did anything but whoa. Exasperated, Jeff caught the bridle by the cheek piece and swung into the saddle. After a few preliminaries in the pitching line, Jeff started bravely for Hospital Springs.
It was destined that this act of renunciation should be thwarted. Copperhead stopped and dug his feet in the ground as if about to take root. Jeff dug the spurs home. With an agonized bawl, Copperhead made a creditable ascension, shook himself and swapped ends before he hit the ground again. “Wooh!” he said. His nose was headed now for Arcadia; he followed his nose, his roan flanks fanned vigorously with a doubled rope.
“Headstrong, stubborn, unmanageable brute! Oh, well, have it your own way then, you old fool! You’ll be sorry!” Copperhead leaped out to the loosened rein. “This is just plain kidnapping!” said Jeff.
Kidnapped and kidnapper were far out on the plain as night came on. Arcadia road stretched dimly to the east; the far lights of La Luz flashed through the leftward dusk; straight before them was a glint and sparkle in the sky, faint, diffused, wavering; beyond, a warm and mellow glow broke the blackness of the mountain wall, where the lights of low-hidden Arcadia beat up against Rainbow Rim.
Jeff was past his first vexation; he sang as he rode:
“There was ink on her thumb when I kissed her hand,
And she whispered: ‘If you should die
I’d write you an epitaph, gloomy and grand!’
‘Time enough for that!’ says I.