t from the
darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement,
would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word
to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing
engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string,
and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the
engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the
"down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he
would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would
seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirling
wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out to keep alongside.

Month after month through the sharp mountain winter, so long as the snow
was not whirling through the air in clouds too dense to penetrate, Van
and his master had their joyous gallops. Then came the spring, slow,
shy, and reluctant as the springtide sets in on that high plateau in
mid-continent, and Van had become even more thoroughly domesticated. He
now looked upon himself as one of the family, and he knew the
dining-room window, and there, thrice each day and sometimes at odd
hours between, he would take his station while the household was at
table and plead with those great soft brown eyes for sugar.
Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of
untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,--a little girl
with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little
maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head
and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van
"took to her" from the very first. He courted the caress of her little
hand, and won her love and trust by the discretion of his movements when
she was near. As soon as the days grew warm enough, she was always out
on the front piazza when Van and I came home from our daily gallop, and
then she would trot out to meet us and be lifted to her perch on the
pommel; and then, with mincing gait, like lady's palfrey, stepping as
though he might tread on eggs and yet not crush them, Van would take the
little one on her own share of the ride. And so it was that the loyal
friendship grew and strengthened. The one trick he had was never
ventured upon when she was on his back, even after she became accustomed
to riding at rapid gait and enjoying the springy canter over the prair