“Good. I’ll ride over on Monday to look at it. You had better come too, to show me where it lies.”
They gladly promised to meet him at the gulch on Monday, and after another look around the ranch, they were ready for home. The Chief was more proud of his horses than anything else. He had raised a special breed from the pure bred wild horses of the plains, and crossed it with pure Arab.
“And they’re the finest bred horses in America to-day,” he declared. “When you come over next time, I’ll take you up and show you them. None of these high-hipped Indian pony animals, with joints like soup bones—”
“Sandy, boy!” protested Mrs. Sandy.
Sandy’s gray eyes twinkled at the motherly reproof in her tone. It was plain to be seen he was her big boy.
“Well, an’ they do look like it, too, Di—but forgive me. Come and see my beauties, when you can.”
“Could we ride them?” asked Polly.
“I doubt it, Polly. Never a saddle have they borne on their backs. When I came West forty years ago, I looked about me, and I saw three things that made me worship in my soul the Maker of things, an eagle in its flight, a mountain at sunrise, and a wild horse. I couldn’t catch the eagle, and I couldn’t snare the sunrise, but I have some of the horses for my own, and it rests my eyes to look at them.”
“Oh, girls, we have time, and we may not get over again,” began Isabel, pleadingly, but it was so late that Jean said no. They would be over before it was time to go back East, surely. So they all kissed Mrs. Sandy good-bye, and only Polly caught the words that she said, as she kissed Jean.
“Is Honoria well?”