And as Chieftain recalled these things the contrast of the pasture's oppressive stillness to the lively roar of the familiar streets came home to him. Who was taking his place between the poles of Team 47? Had they put one of those cheeky Clydes in his old stall? He would not care to lose that stall. It was the best on the second floor. It had a window in it, and Sundays he could see everything that went on in the street below. He could even look into the front rooms of the tenements across the way. There was a little girl over there who interested Chieftain greatly. She was trying to raise some sort of a flower in a tin can which she kept on the window-ledge. She often waved her hand at Chieftain.
Then there was poor Tim Doyle. Good old Tim! Where was another driver like him? He made you work, Tim did, but he looked out for you all the time. Always on the watch, was Tim, for galled spots, chafing sores, hoof-pricks, and things like that. If he could get them he would put on fresh collar-pads every week. And how carefully he would cover you up when you were on the forward end of a ferryboat in stormy weather. No tossing the blanket over your back from Tim. No, sir! It was always doubled about your neck and chest, just where you most need protection when you're steaming hot and the wind is raw. How many drivers warmed the bits on a cold morning or rinsed out your mouth in hot weather? Who, but Tim could drive a breast team through a——
But just here Chieftain heard a shrill, familiar whistle, and in a moment, with as much speed as his heavy build allowed, he was making his way across the field to where a short, stocky man with a broad grin cleaving his face, was climbing the pasture-fence. It was Tim Doyle himself.
Tim, it seems, had so bothered the stable-boss with questions about the farm, its location, distance from the city, and general management, that at last that autocrat had said: "See here, Doyle, if you want to go up there just say so and I'll send you as car hostler with the next batch. I'll give you a note to the farm superintendent. Guess he'll let you hang around for a week or so."
"I'll go up as hostler," said Tim, "but you just say in that there note that Tim Doyle pays his own way after he gets there."
In that way it was settled. For some four days Tim appeared to enjoy it greatly. Most of his time he spent sitting on the pasture-fence, smoking his pipe and watching the grazing horses. To Chieftain alone he brought great bunches of clover.
About the fifth day Tim grew restive. He had examined Chieftain's hoofs and pronounced them well healed, but the superintendent said that it would be a week before he should be ready to send another lot of horses back to the city.
"How far is it by road?" asked Tim.
"Oh, two hundred miles or so," said the superintendent.
"Why not let me take Chieftain down that way? It'd be cheaper'n shippin' him, an' do him good."