All these a part of him now, but in the beginning there had only been a little room of books and pictures and yearnings—yearnings that finally drove him out to find his Crimson Foam. Something else he had found—that still room in Tucson. Not a symbol of that in his father’s house—oh, yes, of course, the alabaster bowl in the dining-room!

His thin lips stretched into the beginnings of a smile. He had heard it said that each day brings to a man nine parts review and one part advance work. Everything seemed like review to him now—the whole circle rounded (at least, it would be when Bart and he were safely over the Border into the States) everything review, except that still room in Tucson. Very much advance work, that. His heart pumped so that he could actually hear its beat.

Sometimes he felt, if he could get a little deeper into the silence, he would know all about—even that. Anyway, it began to dawn on him that everything would have been spoiled if he had rushed north alone, leaving Bart—that the greatest adventure of all lay right in the core of these days of solitude and silence. One night he felt like a different man altogether, as he started down toward El Relicario in the dusk.

XXVII
WORDS

‘You see, I was lazy—no two ways about it—lazy, from the very beginning,’ Bart said during one of the night-talks. ‘I can see how Dad felt now. I didn’t know any better than to think he was against me in those days. I got the feeling I was wronged, and that’s bad. It’s bad to let that wronged feeling pile up in a kid’s chest, until there is no seeing it any other way. The thing that hurt me most was about that horse—old Rat-tail from the Cup Q.’

Elbert kept still with effort. He knew the story of the rat-tail from Bob Leadley’s telling, almost as well as Bart did, but the latter got to talking too rarely to be interrupted.

‘A bad name, that horse had, but he wasn’t really bad. A horse isn’t like a man; he isn’t like a dog. A horse is more like a woman—he goes by feeling, not by his head. A dog will dope a thing out; a mule will, but a horse feels his way. Why, that mare of yours—I’ll bet she doesn’t miss much that’s goin’ on, even if her back’s turned. You’re not foolin’ her a lot, even if you think you are. She’s cute as a woman—

‘The more a man knows about a horse, the more he respects him, the more careful he is,’ Bart went on. ‘You never see a real hand yank his horse around or flourish none. You’re apt not to know a real ridin’ gent unless you’re one yourself. He works easy, and doesn’t attract the eye. You never see him starting a horse into a run as soon as he leaves the corral—unless there’s mighty pressin’ business, like that night we first got together. You don’t see him rowel or quirt, because a real hand doesn’t bring up a horse to need stimulants that way. And he isn’t botherin’ with one that does—not for long. Nine times out of ten a bad horse is man-spoiled, and a real hand doesn’t care to mix with other men’s botched jobs.’

Elbert couldn’t help but see Cal Monroid in all this—Cal, and the way he handled and sat old Chester. Bart and Cal were curiously alike in the one utterly cool and nerveless quality. Evidently it was in this quality, first of all, that their mastery over horses lay—no nerves to confuse the feelings of a mount.

‘That old gray had been raked and hooked so long that all he knew was to fight back. Everybody over at the rancho was afraid of him. Of course, the fellows didn’t say they were; they’re more afraid of each other finding out that they’re afraid, than they are of what they’re afraid of—’