the bar and swung over into English.

“You haf hear about thot?” he asked, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth. Then, as the other shook his head negatively, “Well, I haf new one–potrillo–nice li’l’ horse–si!” He cleared his throat and frowned at the listening bartender. “He’s comin’ couple days before, oop on thee mesa.” He picked up the glass, noted that it was empty, placed it down again. “I’m sellin’ thot potrillo quick,” he went on–“bet you’ life! I feed heem couple weeks more mebbe–feed heem beer and soom cheese!” He laughed raucously at the alleged witticism. “Thot’s thee preencipal t’ing,” he declared, soberly. “You must feed a horse.” He said this not as one recommending that a horse be well fed, but as one advising that a horse be given something to eat occasionally. “Si! Thot’s thee preencipal t’ing! Then he’s makin’ a fast goer–bet you’ life! I haf give heem–” He suddenly interrupted himself and laid firm hold upon the man’s arm. “You coom wit’ me!” he invited, and began to drag the other toward the swing-doors. “You coom look at thot potrillo!”

They went outside. On the curb, Felipe gazed about him, first with a look of pride, then with an expression of blank dismay. He stepped down off the curb, roused the drowsing mare with a vigorous clap, again looked about him worriedly. After a long moment he left the team, walking out into the middle of the street, and strained his eyes in both directions. Then he returned and, heedless of his new overalls, got down upon his knees, sweeping bleared eyes under the wagon. And finally, with a last despairing gaze in every direction, he sat down upon the curb and buried his face in his arms.

For the colt was gone!

CHAPTER IV
A NEW HOME

With the beginning of the forward movement across the railroad the colt, ears cocked and eyes alert, moved across also. Close about him stepped other horses, and over and around him surged a low murmuring, occasionally broken by the crack of a whip. Yet these sounds did not seem to disturb him. He trotted along, crossing the tracks, and when on the opposite side set out straight down the avenue. The avenue was broad, and in this widening area the congestion rapidly thinned, and soon the colt was quite alone in the open. But he continued forward, seeming not to miss his mother, until there suddenly loomed up beside him a very fat and very matronly appearing horse. Then he hesitated, turning apprehensive eyes upon her. But not for long. Evidently accepting this horse as his mother, he fell in close beside her and trotted along again in perfect composure.

Behind this horse was a phaeton, and in the phaeton sat two persons. They were widely different in age. One was an elderly man, broad of shoulders and with a ruddy face faintly threaded with purple; the other was a young girl, not more than seventeen, his daughter, with a face sweet and alert, and a mass of chestnut hair–all imparting a certain esthetic beauty. Like the man, the girl was ruddy of complexion, though hers was the bloom of youth, while his was toll taken from suns and winds of the desert. The girl was the first to discover the colt.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, placing a restraining hand upon the other. “Whose beautiful colt is that?”

The Judge pulled down his horse and leaned far out over the side. “Why, I don’t know, dear!” he replied, after a moment, then turned his eyes to the rear. “He must belong with some team in that crush.”

The girl regarded the colt with increasing rapture. “Isn’t he a perfect dear!” she went on. “Look at him, daddy!” she suddenly urged, delightedly. “He’s dying to know why we stopped!” Which, indeed, the colt looked to be, since he had come to a stop with the mare and now was regarding them curiously. “I’d love to pet him!”

The Judge frowned. “We’re late for luncheon,” he declared, and again gazed to the rear. “We’d better take him along with us out to the ranch. To-morrow I’ll advertise him in the papers.” And he shook up the mare. “We’d better go along, Helen.”

“Just one minute, daddy!” persisted the girl, gathering up her white skirts and, as the Judge pulled down, leaping lightly out of the phaeton. “I’ve simply got to pet him!” She cautiously approached the colt.

He permitted her this approach. Nor did he shy at her outstretched hand. Under her gentle caresses he stood very still, and when she stooped before him, as she did presently, bringing her eyes upon a level with his own, he gazed into them very frankly and earnestly, as if gauging this person, as he had seemed to tabulate all other things, some day to make good use of his knowledge. After a time the girl spoke.

“I wish I could keep you always,” she said, poutingly. “You look so nice and babyish!” But she knew that she could not keep him, and after a time she stood up again and sighed, and fell to stroking him thoughtfully. “I’ll have you to-day, anyway,” she declared, finally, with promise of enjoyment in her voice, as one who meant to make the most of it. Then she got back into the phaeton.

The Judge started up the horse again. They continued through the town, and when on its northwestern outskirts turned to the right along a trail that paralleled the river. The trail ran north and south, and on either side of it, sometimes shielding a secluded ranch, always forming an agreeable oasis in the flat brown of the country, rose an occasional clump of cottonwoods. The ranch-houses were infrequent, however; all of them were plentifully supplied with water by giant windmills which clacked and creaked above the trees in the high-noon breeze. To the left, across the river, back from the long, slow rise of sand from the water’s edge, rose five blunt heights like craters long extinct; while above these, arching across the heavens in spotless sheen, curved the turquoise dome of a southwestern midday sky, flooding the dust and dunes below in throbbing heat-rays. It was God’s own section of earth, and not the least beautiful of its vistas, looming now steadily ahead on their right, was the place belonging to Judge Richards. House and outhouses white, and just now aglint in the white light of the sun, the whole ranch presented the appearance of diamonds nestling in a bed of emerald-green velvet. Turning off at this ranch, the Judge tossed the reins to a waiting Mexican.

Helen was out of the phaeton like a flash. Carefully guiding the colt around the house and across a patio, she turned him loose into a spacious corral. Then she fell to watching him, and she continued to watch him until a voice from the house, that of an aged Mexican woman who presided over the kitchen, warned her that dinner was waiting. Reluctantly hugging the colt–hugging him almost savagely in her sudden affection for him–she then turned to leave, but not without a word of explanation.

“I must leave you now, honey!” she said, much as a child would take leave of her doll. “But I sha’n’t be away from you long, and when I come back I’ll see what I can do about feeding you!”

The colt stood for a time, peering between the corral boards after her. Then he set out upon a round of investigation. He moved slowly along the inside of the fence, seeming to approve its whitewashed cleanliness, until, turning in a corner, he stood before the stable door. Here he paused a moment, gazing into the semi-gloom, then sprang up the one step. Inside, he stood another moment, sweeping eyes down