sweat and lather. The velvet of
young grass was torn up by its hoofs, and its terror of the stream was
such, that, when fetched to the edge at a canter, it stiffened and
crouched to an abrupt stop, then reared on its hind-legs. Which was too
much for Michael.

He sprang at the horse's head as it came down with forefeet to earth, and
as he sprang he barked. In his bark was censure and menace, and, as the
horse reared again, he leaped into the air after it, his teeth clipping
together as he just barely missed its nose.

Villa rode back down the slope to the opposite bank of the stream.

"Mercy!" she cried. "Listen to him! He's actually barking."

"He thinks the colt is trying to do some damage to me," Harley said.
"That's his provocation. He hasn't forgotten how to bark. He's reading
the colt a lecture."

"If he gets him by the nose it will be more than a lecture," Villa
warned. "Be careful, Harley, or he will."

"Now, Michael, lie down and be good," Harley commanded. "It's all right,
I tell you. It's an right. Lie down."

Michael sank down obediently, but protestingly; and he had eyes only for
the horse's antics, while all his muscles were gathered tensely to spring
in case the horse threatened injury to Harley again.

"I can't give in to him now, or he never will jump anything," Harley said
to his wife, as he whirled about to gallop back to a distance. "Either I
lift him over or I take a cropper."

He came back at full speed, and the colt, despite himself, unable to
stop, lifted into the leap that would avoid the stream he feared, so that
he cleared it with a good two yards to spare on the other side.

The next time Michael barked was when Harley, on the same hot-blood
mount, strove to close a poorly hung gate on the steep pitch of a
mountain wood-road. Michael endured the danger to his man-god as long as
he could, then flew at the colt's head in a frenzy of barking.

"Anyway, his barking helped," Harley conceded, as he managed to close the
gate. "Michael must certainly have told the colt that he'd give him what-
for if he didn't behave."

"At any rate, he's not tongue-tied," Villa laughed, "even if he isn't
very loquacious."

And Michael's loquacity never went farther. Only on these two occasions,
when his master-god seemed to be in peril, was he known to bark. He
never barked at the moon, nor at hillside echoes, nor at any prowling
thing. A particular echo, to be heard directly from th