Walter Stone cinched up the saddle and mounted his pony. The boy's eyes shone as he gazed at the strong, soldierly figure. Ah, to look like that, and ride a horse like that!
Boyar, the black pony, clattered up and stopped. "Hello, folks!" said Louise, purposely including the boy in her greeting.
Collie flushed happily. Then a bitterness grew in his heart as he thought of his friend Overland, hunted from town to town by the same law that protected these people—an unjust law that they observed and fostered.
"Well?" said Stone.
Collie's gaze was on the ground. "I don' know," he muttered. "I don' know."
"Well, good luck to you!" And the ponies swung into that philosophical lope of the Western horse who knows his journey's length.
The figures of the riders grew smaller. Still the boy stood in the road, watching them. Undecided, he gazed. Then came an answer to his stubborn self-questioning. Louise glanced back—glanced back for an instant in mute sympathy with his loneliness.
Slowly the boy turned and entered the jail. He folded his coat over his arm, stepped outside, and closed the door.
Before him stretched the hot gray level of El Camino Real, the road to the beyond. From it branched a narrower road, reaching up into the southern hills,—on, up to the mysterious Moonstone Cañon with its singing stream and its gracious shade. Somewhere beyond, higher, and in the shadowy fastness of the great ranges lay the Moonstone Ranch ... her home.
"I guess, steppin' up smart, I'll be there just about in time for supper," said the boy. And whistling cheerily, he set his feet toward the south and the Moonstone Trail.