from slumber, he sleepily put his hand on the shaggy head of a
bear that was curiously rummaging him, and he was sorry that the beast
took alarm and trotted away,--he would have been comfortable to hug.
That was before the dog had come into his life. He could never
understand why he was not afraid of anything whatever--not even of the
terrific lightning and thunder that sometimes flamed and crashed and
bellowed all about him,--except human beings and the forces that they
controlled; and at times he wondered why Cap loved him and the buckskin
horse would kill him from hate if he could.

Here, then, beyond the picket fence, was the proclamation of his
shame,--coming from a gentle, superannuated horse with no more spirit
than a snail's. By some means, perhaps instinctive,--for all the world,
when it finds out, will hunt down and destroy whatsoever fears it
(although the boy had not reasoned it out thus),--the beast had learned
that the boy was afraid, and had then found an interest in life. Let him
but have a glimpse of Ray, and, ears back, lips drawn from hideous
yellow teeth, and head thrust horribly forward, he would snort,
charge,--and the boy would run abjectly. The horse had never thus
treated another living thing. So the boy had stayed away from his
grandmother's, and she had never suspected, and her love and prayers had
brought no revelation.

As the fence intervened, the horse knew that a charge would be useless;
but when, with a neat leap the boy nimbly caught his feet on the ground
within the pasture, the buckskin advanced in his minatory way. Ray did
not know why he had leaped the fence, unless the wrench in his throat
had hurled him over or the flame and smoke of the grass fire had driven
him; nor did he know why he went steadily to meet the horse, nor why his
nostrils stretched and his arms strained and his hands clenched, nor why
there was a fierce eagerness in him; a rasping thirst for something
dried his tongue. The horse came on, and the boy, perfectly calm, as
fatally went to meet him. There was no calculation of results, yet the
lad knew that a horse's teeth and hoofs may be deadly. He knew only that
he was not going forward to end all his wretchedness, as, last year, the
shoemaker who drank had done with a shotgun, and young Corson, the
thieving clerk, with poison. It occurred to the boy that he cared
nothing about the teeth and hoofs of any horse, and nothing about what
they might do.

So ridiculo