"Is she good to ride?"
"Pretty good,—though if you make her go much faster 'n she takes a notion to, she's got the heaves so folks'll think there's a small volcano coming!"
"How fast will she go?"
"As fast as a good slow walk; that's her style," said the boy, and whipped the bushes. "But, come to think, father's away from home, and you'll have to wait till to-morrow night before you can see him, and get him to let you take her."
"Boy," said Jack, tired of the lad's tone of levity, and thinking to interest him by a statement of the facts in the case, "I've been hunting, and a rascal I trusted with my horse has run off with him, and I have a harness and a buggy and a couple of dead deer out there on the prairie."
"Deer?" echoed the lad, pricking up his ears at once. "Did you shoot 'em? Where? Can I go and see 'em?"
Jack was beginning to see the hopelessness of pursuing the horse-thief that night, or with any help to to be had in that region; and he now turned his thoughts to getting the buggy home.
"Yes, boy; come with me," he said.
The boy shouted and switched his stick at the cattle browsing by the wayside, and started them on a smart trot down the road, then hastened with Jack to the spot where the wagon and game had been left, guarded by Lion.
But Jack had another object in view than simply to gratify the lad's curiosity.