He found the Chief striding across Il Campo, heading for his home. They saw each other at the same moment.
"Giorgio!" the big man shouted, and his arms flung wide apart, as though he would clasp the boy and the mare both. "How are you? How is it with our cavallina? Tell me all about her! Don't keep me one minute more in this anxious waiting."
Giorgio suddenly felt shy. He answered with two little words. "All fine."
"That I can see!" the Chief laughed. "The mare, she is rekindled!" He stepped now in front of Gaudenzia, pulled off his white gloves, and with both hands felt of her chest and forearms. "Not even sweating," he nodded in approval. "Come, let us walk to the stable, and while walking you will tell me how she goes in her work. Then, after she is bedded down, you will come to my home where we can engage in serious talk."
The stable was midway of a narrow downhill alley with walls high-rising on either side. Giorgio's spirits plummeted at its darkness. It did have a window, but it was covered by a curtain of gunny sacking. There were two stalls divided by heavy planking. The one nearer the door was occupied by a bay gelding, and the other, deeply strawed, awaited Gaudenzia.
"To find stable room is very difficult," the Chief was explaining. "But Morello here is a good horse and the two will become friends and help each other to forget the Maremma. He, too, comes from your wilderness."
Across the partition Gaudenzia and Morello began at once to get acquainted—first in screams, then nips, and at last in low whinnies.
"How quick they make friends!" the Chief grinned. "Now then, the hay is piled here, the grain is in the sack yonder, and the medicines in the cabinet. Now you can take over."
Giorgio noted the racks already filled, the water buckets brimming. He would come back later to grain and groom Gaudenzia and to remove the gunny-sack curtain.
He followed the Chief to his home, which perched on a ledge of rock like an eagle's nest. The view was miniature compared to the world of the Maremma. Below was a tiny dim valley, and climbing the opposite hillside were busy little farm plots. But the same deep sky was overhead and the same stars beginning to punch holes in the blue.