d, impressed now with the size of Jake, she stood on a box
and let out the headstall two holes.

Jake did not seem to approve of her camera and canteen and field glasses
and rifle, and stepped restlessly away from her when she went to tie them
on. So she compromised on the canteen and field glasses, and hid camera
and rifle under some sacks in the shed. It seemed to her that she would
never get started; as though daylight--and Bill Hayden--would come and
find her still in a nightmare struggle with the details of departure.
Back of all that the thought of that strange, disguised voice talking
for Johnny Jewel nagged at her nerves as something sinister and
mysterious.

She led Jake by a somewhat roundabout way to the gate, opened it and
closed it behind them before she attempted to mount. Jake was very
tall--much taller than he had ever before seemed to be. She had to hunt
a high spot and coax him to stand on the lower ground beside it before
she could feel confidence enough to lift her toe to the stirrup. Bill
Hayden always danced around a good deal on one foot, she remembered,
before he essayed to swing up. Standing on an ant hill did not permit
much of the preliminary dancing around to which Jake was accustomed, so
Mary V caught reins and saddle horn and made a desperate, flying leap.

She landed in the saddle, found the stirrups and cried, "You, Jake!" in a
not altogether convincing tone. Jake was walking on his hind feet by way
of intimating that he objected to so tight a rein. After that he danced
sidewise, fought for his head, munched the strange bit angrily, snorted
and made what the boys called Jake's chain-lightnin' gitaway.

Mary V knew that Jake was running away with her, but since he was running
along the trail to Sinkhole camp she did not mind so much as you might
think. At the worst he would fall down and she would get a "spill." She
knew the sensation, having been spilled several times. So she gripped him
tightly with her strong young knees and let him run. And after the first
shock of dismay, she thrilled to the swift flight, with a guilty
exultation in what she had done.

Jake ran a couple of miles before he showed any symptom of slowing. After
that he straightened out in a long, easy lope that was a sheer delight to
Mary V, though she knew it must not be permitted for very long, because
Jake had a good many miles to cover before daylight. She brought him down
gradually to a swinging, "running walk"