I was rather amused. Attaboy had been very nice to me ever since I stopped Big Chief from running away. He was so stubborn, however, that he always said Big Chief, being such a wonderful boy, would have come home without my interference.
"The Good American's wife and children arrived, too," said David Wales, the Welsh pony.
"And servants and guests," continued the Exmoor.
"You should have seen them driving in from the Lake of Bays," said Attaboy, "motor cars and waggons piled high with luggage."
"They are very late this year," said Attaboy. "I hear there was a wedding in the family that delayed them."
I pricked up my ears when I heard the word guests. Was it possible that Dallas' mother was among them? Probably she was and that would explain Mr. Devering's eagerness to get the trail between the two houses in good condition before his American friends arrived.
Well! We ponies would see what we would see, and I listened sleepily to Apache Girl, who always had a talk with me now before I sank down on my straw bed.
She rarely lay down. She said she was afraid of mice getting up her nostrils, but I told her it was the wild blood in her. When horses roam in bands about a country they must be always on the alert against enemies who would creep on them.
Oh! what queer stories she used to tell me—queer uncanny stories of Spaniards and Americans that had been passed down to her by her ancestors.
I was delighted that she had thawed toward me, but finally nodded until I fell asleep just as a wild Inca chief with a spear in his hand was rushing at a Spaniard.