Pink Eye was honoured with a corral all to himself, an unusually strong one of six-foot fences, with a network of wire stapled about it. The gate, a clumsy affair of cotton-wood logs, hinged to the post by heavy loops of iron, was fastened at its other side by a chain passing through a huge staple in the gate and padlocked around the fence post. This post was sunk in the ground close to the main post of the fence, apparently added to fill an over-wide breach left by a makeshift gate.
The Professor took the key and pulled the gate open for Pink Eye to scamper through.
"Humph!" he growled. "The key seems a bit superfluous, with that contraption to move before Pink Eye could get out."
He closed the padlock and started back for the ranch-house.
"You're sure you locked it?"
Stamford, remembering Cockney's last words, turned back. To his surprise the loop had not caught, though the Professor had turned the key in the lock. The latter, apologetic, returned and corrected the mistake.
"They'd have thought we were too frightened to do the job right," he remarked, with a sheepish grin. "Just the same, it's a tiresome rite to go through for one lone broncho that wouldn't go far if he got away."
"Oh," Cockney exclaimed, several minutes after they were back in the sitting-room, "the key!"
The Professor fumbled through his pocket and produced it.
"Pink Eye must look on his corral," he observed, "as the equine equivalent of a jail. Is he in the habit of spending his evenings at the corner saloon, or——"