“Superb, Augusta! Couldn’t have done it better yourself, what?”
“He can ride,” said his wife. Her eyes were upon the flying figure. “He is quite without fear and has the true rider’s instinct for what his mount can do. Wonderful pony of his that. There’s a mate to it in Gaspard’s bunch I’d like for Peg.”
“Oh, thanks, my dear; Peggy is quite sufficiently well mounted. Tubby does her quite well. I have no desire to see my daughter tearing like a mad thing after that race horse.”
“Poor old Tubby! She does her best, but I fear she is a continual source of humiliation and heartache to her rider when out with the pinto. Perhaps next year, eh? She will be quite ready to ride with me by that time.”
“With you? The Lord forbid! You know quite well, my dear, when once you are astride a horse you are conscious only of one consuming passion.”
“Well, I like to hear you talk!” And it must be confessed there was ground for her scorn. For in cross-country work in the Homeland there was just one place in the hunt that gave any real satisfaction to the little Colonel, as daring a hunter as ever rode to hounds.
Meantime the pinto and his rider had tracked the others up to the Pine Croft bungalow, along the upper trail, and down again toward the big rapid. To Paul, who for the past two years had been trained in sign reading by Indian Tom, his father’s ancient factotum, the trail lay plain as the open road. After the first wild gallop he was in no hurry to catch up. The glory of the early June day filled his world, right up to the blue sky. With his eyes open to the unending variety of colour and form in the growing things about him, he cantered slowly along, his lithe form swaying in unison with every motion of his pony. He had the make of a rider and his style was a curious mixture of his father’s and Indian Tom’s. His hands were his father’s; the easy yielding sway of his body he had from Indian Tom. But, whatever its source, every movement of every part of his body was smooth, easy, graceful. As the pinto carried him along in swallow-like movement, his mind following his eye went first to the pictures that kept composing and dissolving themselves on either side, and from them to those pictures which from his earliest years he had watched his father call into being in his studio. Where was his father now? For three years there had been silence, from that dreadful day when his father, gaunt, broken, his great frame heaving with deep-drawn sobs, had ridden down the Golden trail, followed by Indian Tom, leaving him with Colonel Pelham. Two words only had his father spoken, two unforgettable words. “Paul, your mother has gone to God. Let every morning bring back to you her words.” And the other, “Some day I will come back to you—point of honour,” using a phrase common to those three when the word was pledged. Those two words he carried in his heart. With every opening dawn his first thoughts went to his mother. He was dismayed to find how few were his mother’s words that came to him as he sat down deliberately to recall them. To his delight he stumbled upon a plan. When struggling with his Catechism—it was a point of honour that he should complete the task his mother had not seen completed—he found upon reviewing the questions he had discussed with her that floods of memories were let loose upon his mind. With painful care, for, though he had his father’s fingers and was clever with them, he had made no very great progress with his penmanship, he undertook to set down, in one of his father’s sketch books, all her sayings that came back to him. The words associated with the Bible stories were much easier to recall. The chirography and orthography would have quite paralysed the intelligence of learned experts, but to himself the record was perfectly intelligible, and with its increasing volume became an increasingly precious possession. This record he kept hidden from mortal eyes, but somehow he had the conviction both God and his mother knew all about it. The two were very really and vitally associated in his thought. Indeed, God had come nearer since his mother had passed out of his sight. His mother, he knew, was intimately involved in his life, sharing his thoughts, his imaginations, his dreams. And since she had gone to God, naturally it followed that God must be somehow, somewhere, quite close at hand. He no longer saw God’s face up in the blue between the clouds. He was deeply grieved that he never could visualise that kindly face looking down, so quiet and so kind, “as if He liked him.” It seemed as if God had moved much nearer to him, so near that he seemed to be aware of Him, and by intently “listening with his ears inside,” as he explained to Indian Tom who seemed to quite understand, he could “hear God thinking.” “And so,” as he confidently asserted to the gravely sympathetic Indian, “I always know what He wants me to know.” Life was a very simple proceeding with Paul. He had only to listen carefully and, having heard, to give heed.
But where was his father, and when would he come back? The little Colonel was quite silent upon that question, and upon that question the boy was equally reserved with the Colonel. With a maturity ripened by responsibility, the boy had fallen into the habit of keeping an eye upon the ranch matters. His own observation was quickened by the rare but penetrating comments of Indian Tom who, though deficient in initiative and inclined when not impelled to activity by necessity to a laissez faire attitude towards life, was nevertheless, when once set upon a trail, tenacious of his quest as a bloodhound on the scent. It was a remark of Indian Tom’s that gave the Colonel’s lady the clue as to Sleeman’s Saddle-backs and Percherons. It was a grunt of Indian Tom’s that had set Paul off one day on a tour round the ranch, and that first tour with Indian Tom proved so fascinating that once a week for a year and a half, through rain or shine, cold or heat, Paul had ridden round the line of fences of the ranch. He had come to know that things were not going well, and this knowledge intensified in him the longing for his father’s return.
The sound of shouting broke the current of his thoughts. He pulled up his pony and stood listening. “They’re away beyond the big rapid,” he said to himself. “Must be down by the creek.” Again the shouting came to him, and in an instant he was off at a gallop. A short run brought him to the edge of a rapidly flowing stream along which a cow path ran. Following this path he came upon an open grassy meadow through which the stream had cut its way between overhanging banks. At a little distance he saw his friends, and as he drew near learned the cause of the shouting. The stream had cut a channel about eight feet wide, through which the water ran, deep and swift, to a pool some thirty yards farther down, from which it tumbled over jagged rocks to a bench below. Across this flowing stream Asa and his sister were jumping their horses in high glee, and taunting Peg to attempt the same exploit.
“Hurrah! Out of the way there!” shouted Paul, heading his pony toward the jump. With his ears pricked forward the pinto approached the stream on an easy lope. “Up there, old chap,” cried Paul, lifting his pony with the reins. With never a pause, the pony gathered himself in two or three quick strides and went sailing over the stream like a bird.