warning, he took to whirling and bolting. Daylight put a stop
to this with spurs and quirt, running him several punishing miles in
the direction of his bolt. But when he turned him around and started
forward, Bob proceeded to feign fright at trees, cows, bushes, Wolf,
his own shadow--in short, at every ridiculously conceivable object. At
such times, Wolf lay down in the shade and looked on, while Daylight
wrestled it out.

So the day passed. Among other things, Bob developed a trick of making
believe to whirl and not whirling. This was as exasperating as the
real thing, for each time Daylight was fooled into tightening his leg
grip and into a general muscular tensing of all his body. And then,
after a few make-believe attempts, Bob actually did whirl and caught
Daylight napping again and landed him in the old position with clasped
arms around the neck.

And to the end of the day, Bob continued to be up to one trick or
another; after passing a dozen automobiles on the way into Oakland,
suddenly electing to go mad with fright at a most ordinary little
runabout. And just before he arrived back at the stable he capped the
day with a combined whirling and rearing that broke the martingale and
enabled him to gain a perpendicular position on his hind legs. At this
juncture a rotten stirrup leather parted, and Daylight was all but
unhorsed.

But he had taken a liking to the animal, and repented not of his
bargain. He realized that Bob was not vicious nor mean, the trouble
being that he was bursting with high spirits and was endowed with more
than the average horse's intelligence. It was the spirits and the
intelligence, combined with inordinate roguishness, that made him what
he was. What was required to control him was a strong hand, with
tempered sternness and yet with the requisite touch of brutal dominance.

"It's you or me, Bob," Daylight told him more than once that day.

And to the stableman, that night:--

"My, but ain't he a looker! Ever see anything like him? Best piece of
horseflesh I ever straddled, and I've seen a few in my time."

And to Bob, who had turned his head and was up to his playful
nuzzling:--

"Good-by, you little bit of all right. See you again next Sunday A.M.,
and just you bring along your whole basket of tricks, you old
son-of-a-gun."

CHAPTER XII

Throughout the week Daylight found himself almost as much interested in
Bob as in Dede; and, not being in the thick of any b