of pulling it shut so hard that it jammed in the casing.
He led her to where her horse stood backed to the wind and tail
whipping between his legs, and his eyes blinking half shut against the
swirls of dust dug out of the dry sod of the grassland. Without any
spoken command, Tom took the reins and flipped them up over Rab's
neck, standing forward and close to the horse's shoulder. Mary Hope
knew that she must mount or be lifted bodily into the saddle. She
mounted, tears of wrath spilling from her eyes and making her cheeks
cold where they trickled down.

The Boyle children, kicking and quirting their two horses--riding
double, in the Black Rim country, was considered quite comfortable
enough for children--were already on their way home. Mary Hope looked
at their hurried retreat and turned furiously, meaning to overtake
them and order them back. Tom Lorrigan, she reminded herself, might
force her to leave the schoolhouse, but he would scarcely dare to
carry his abuse farther.

She had gone perhaps ten rods when came a pounding of hoofs, and
Coaley's head and proudly arched neck heaved alongside poor,
draggle-maned old Rab.

"You're headed wrong. Have I got to haze yuh all the way home? Might
as well. I want to tell yore dad a few things."

He twitched the reins, and Coaley obediently shouldered Rab out of the
trail and turned him neatly toward the Douglas ranch. Even Rab was
Scotch, it would seem. He laid his ears flat, swung his head
unexpectedly, and bared his teeth at Coaley. But Coaley was of the
Lorrigans. He did not bare his teeth and threaten; he reached out like
a rattler and nipped Rab's neck so neatly that a spot the size of a
quarter showed pink where the hair had been. Rab squealed, whirled and
kicked, but Coaley was not there at that particular moment. He came
back with the battle light in his eyes, and Rab clattered away in a
stiff-legged run. After him went Coaley, loping easily, with high,
rabbit jumps that told how he would love to show the speed that was in
him, if only Tom would loosen the reins a half inch.

For a mile Tom kept close to Rab's heels. Then, swinging up alongside,
he turned to Mary Hope, that baffling half smile on his lips and the
look in his eyes that had never failed to fill her with trepidation.

"I ain't blaming yuh for being Scotch and stubborn," he said, "but you
notice there's something beats it four ways from the jack. Yo go on
home, now, and don't yuh go back to that bo