or."

I did not agree with him, partly because I was not at all pleased with my
present mount, and partly because I was not in amiable mood; so we
galloped along in sulky silence, while a washed-out moon sidled over our
heads and dodged behind cloud-banks quite as if she were ashamed to be
seen. The coyotes got to yapping out somewhere in the dark, and, as we
came among the breaks that border the Missouri, a gray wolf howled close
at hand.

Perry Potter's horse, that had shown unmistakable symptoms of disgust at
the endless gallop he had been called upon to maintain, shied sharply away
from the sound, stumbled from leg-weariness, and fell heavily; for the
second time that night I had need to show my dexterity--but, in this case,
with Perry Potter's stirrups swinging somewhere in the vicinity of my
knees, the danger of getting caught was not so great. I stood there in the
dark loneliness of the silent hills and the howling wolf, and looked down
at the brute with little pity and a good deal of resentment. I applied my
toe tentatively to his ribs, and he just grunted. Frosty got down and led
Spikes closer, and together we surveyed the heavily breathing, gray bulk
in the sand at our feet.

"If he was the _Yellow Peril_, instead of one of your much-vaunted
steeds," I remarked tartly, "I could go at him with a wrench and have him
in working order again in five minutes; as it is--" I felt that the
sentence was stronger uncompleted.

"As it is," finished Frosty calmly, "you'll just step up on Spikes and go
on to Pochette's. It's only about ten miles, now; Spikes is good for it,
if you ease him on the hills now and then. He isn't the _Yellow Peril_,
maybe, but he's a good little horse, and he'll sure take yuh through the
best he knows."

I don't know why, but a lump came up in my throat at the tone of him.
I put out my hand and laid it on Spikes' wet, sweat-roughened neck. "Yes,
he's a good little horse, and I beg his pardon for what I said," I owned,
still with the ache just back of my palate. "But he can't carry us both,
Frosty; I'll just have to tinker up this old skate, and make him go on."

"Yuh can't do it; he's reached his limit. Yuh can't expect a common cayuse
like him to do more than eighty miles in one shift--at the gait we've been
traveling. I'm surprised he's held out so long. Yuh take Spikes and go on;
I'll walk in. Yuh know the way from here, and I can't help yuh out any
more than to let yuh have Spikes. Go