"I'll tell you what you do. You turn that pony and saddle over to me when we get through, and I'll call it square."
"Well, I reckon you won't," said the girl, throwing back her sunbonnet as if in challenge. "That's my pony, and nobody gets him without blood, and don't you forget it, sonny."
She was a large-featured girl, so blonde as to be straw-colored, even to the lashes of her eyes, but her teeth were very white, and her lips a vivid pink. She had her father's humorous smile, and though her words were bluff, her eyes betrayed that she liked Harold at once.
Harold smiled back at her. "Well, I'll take the next best, that roan there."
The boy burst into wild clamor: "Not by a darn sight, you don't. That's my horse, an' no sucker like you ain't goin' to ride him, nuther."
"Why don't you ride him?" asked Harold.
The boy looked foolish. "I'm goin' to, some day."
"He can't," said the girl, "and I don't think you can."
Pratt grinned. "Wal, you see how it is, youngster, you an' me has got to get down to a money basis. Them young uns claim all my stawk."