"I'm so tired," he said suddenly, and he flopped down on a big flat rock which was very pleasant and warm in the sunshine.
"Squattez vous, Pony," he said, and to be agreeable I lay down, for I have not the objection to doubling my legs under me that some members of the horse family have.
"I'm sure out of the world," he was murmuring as he gazed at the blue waters of the long lake spread out before us. "Of course I've seen mountains and hills in the distance before, but I never got right up among them. Pony-Boy, I'm the queerest kid you ever saw."
"You sure are," I thought, but of course I could say nothing.
His attention wandered from the lake to me. "I've often seen ponies like you in parks and on the streets, but I've never been so near one. Oh! I wish I had a pony of my own, but I suppose you cost a good deal of money."
I certainly did, but there was no reason why he should know just how much. I don't like to hear a lad counting up the cost of everything.
"I shouldn't think a settler away up here could afford you," he said. "You look like A, number one stock."
I twitched my ears backward and forward as I have a way of doing when I'm puzzled. Old Talker couldn't own this place. I had my suspicions that the whole thing was the fad of some rich man. My log cabin was the only rough thing on the place. The barns, hen-houses, ice-house, root-house, carriage-house and the flower garden in front and the vegetable garden at the back were as up-to-date as if they were right down in my original home in the State of New York.
These sheep running away from us were of standard stock, and the evening before I had seen a fine herd of Holstein cows and some of the best bred pigs I had ever come across.
Someone was trying an experiment up on these Highlands. Perhaps it was the tall man I had just seen coming out of the house and joining the children.