“Oh! do you expect to be gone long?” asked the Guardian, leaning out, with grateful interest.
“No, ma’am. Not with two o’ my help missing,” came the grim answer; “one off on a vacation, t’ other on his back with a ‘busted’ leg, broken by a kick from a bad horse down in one of those concrete boxes—outdoor boxes.”
The girls, listening eagerly, knew well those great concrete-lined “horse-boxes”, where outlaws moped and half-civilized horses, not good enough to be trusted up on the range.
“I guess, for one night, my son, Sanbie, and old ‘Burn-the-wind’, the blacksmith, can hold the fort,” laughed Menzies. “I’m just making a flying trip to Bennington, to buy grain,” came back the floating accents; “double header—thinking of selling Revelation.”
Double header! Kill two birds with one stone! But that stone hit something in its way—the heart of Pemrose Lorry.
Sell Revelation! The horse she had ridden all the summer. The horse who had come to know her so well that, while he still coquetted with oats and halter, once she had him caught, and saddled, he would look round at her out of his almost human eyes, curiously saying: “Well! are we going now? I’m—ready.”
Now was when she got her tear-in-two jolt. Her heart jumped like a riven tree—sank blighted.
And here was where Una scored again; she owned her horse. Revel would be sent up to the city, for her to ride.
“But it wouldn’t be ‘sporty’ to show it—show anything,” murmured Pemrose to her riven heart. “I’m too lucky to have ridden him—all—summer!”
“Best—best horse in the Long Pasture,” went on Menzies’ musing croak. “Expect to get five hundred for him. Only waiting till Mr. Grosvenor gets back to clinch the bargain. And he’s expected home to-morrow; isn’t he, Miss Una?”