The doctor’s lips twitched. He liked the impetuous youngness of it ... the lad couldn’t wait to show him, and to show himself.... “No, of course not, Dean! I’ll saddle Ted—”
He noted with satisfaction the authority with which Dean Wolcott swung himself into the saddle and set off, ahead of him, up the precipitous Government Trail, and he kept his keen eyes on the slim figure—the easy seat, the vigilant relaxing, the sure coördination of body and brain. Beyond question, he told himself, deeply content, the boy had learned to ride. When they finished the twisting climb and came out on a level shoulder of the mountain he saw Dean Wolcott lean suddenly forward in the saddle, and Snort shot ahead in a plunging lope; horse and rider, a splendid, pulsing unit, flashed over the open space in the warm glow of the sunset, wheeled sharply at the foot of the next rise, and came back, Snort curveting, prancing, flinging up his handsome head, his flanks lathered with excitement rather than heat.
“Well?” said the young man, nakedly bidding for praise. “Well, Doctor?”
The doctor had not seen the serio-comic exhibition at Dos Pozos but he had had it fully and faithfully described to him, so he was able to balance that day’s performance with this, and he was moved to warm commendation. “Upon my word, Dean, it’s astonishing! In less than a year’s time—and you’ve been physically fit for only a few months— Well, this has removed my last lingering doubt of your ability to swing the Ranger work. You’ve a good hand, a good seat; authority. I consider you”—he went on, speaking with relish, bestowing his accolade, and the words sounded richer to the young man than the ones which had accompanied the pinning on of his medals—“I consider you a horseman.”
Dean Wolcott swung himself smoothly to the ground; there was a silkiness of movement, now, a sure competence about him. “Then”—he colored hotly but his gaze was steady—“then you think I should not cut a ludicrous figure now, before—’Rome Ojeda—Ginger?”
“I should say not!” said Dr. Gurney Mayfield with immense heartiness.
The easterner slipped a hand under Snort’s mane and the roan, trembling a little, let him rub his neck slowly and steadily. The young man took time, at last, to look about him. They were on the shoulder of a brown and rugged mountain, looking forward to range on range of other mountains, brown, gray, blue, purple in distance, piling up against the warm sky, looking back to the shining sea three thousand feet below them, with a crimson sun sinking swiftly on the edge of the world. With his hand on Snort’s arched neck it was a moment of highly colored happiness such as he had not known for eleven months—since he had taken his eye away from the kaleidoscope at Dos Pozos.
“This is—tremendous, Doctor!” He gave a long sigh of utter satisfaction. “There aren’t any words for it.” Then he turned his attention to the doctor’s mount. “I’ve been so engrossed in my horse I haven’t noticed yours, Doctor. Splendid, isn’t he?”
“Well, now, I was beginning to wonder when you’d get round to old Ted,” said Dr. Mayfield. “He’s used to compliments, Ted is. Wouldn’t sell him for his weight in sapphires!” The horse, a tall and powerful creature, turned his head and listened to his master with delicately twitching ears. “See those ears? Many’s the time Ted’s pointed a deer for me, before I saw it. He’s a gentleman; he’s a man and a brother; you can count on him in a tight place. I’ll have to tell you how he saved my life once. It was—but I guess we’ll have to be jogging along to supper, right now.”
The young man, however, stood still, looking at him with an enhanced color in his keen and eager face. “If you’ve a moment more to spare, Doctor, I—I should like to make myself clear to you on the subject of—Ginger; of my attitude toward Ginger.”