they made me sick. Oh, I'm
hep to 'em. Nervous, an' trembly, an' screechy, an' wabbly. I reckon
they come out on my account an' not for the ponies. But me for the brave
kid that likes the ponies. You're the real goods, Saxon, honest to God
you are. Why, I can talk like a streak with you. The rest of 'em make me
sick. I'm like a clam. They don't know nothin', an' they're that scared
all the time--well, I guess you get me"

"You have to be born to love horses, maybe," she answered. "Maybe it's
because I always think of my father on his roan war-horse that makes me
love horses. But, anyway, I do. When I was a little girl I was drawing
horses all the time. My mother always encouraged me. I've a scrapbook
mostly filled with horses I drew when I was little. Do you know, Billy,
sometimes I dream I actually own a horse, all my own. And lots of times
I dream I'm on a horse's back, or driving him."

"I'll let you drive 'em, after a while, when they've worked their edge
off. They're pullin' now.--There, put your hands in front of mine--take
hold tight. Feel that? Sure you feel it. An' you ain't feelin' it all by
a long shot. I don't dast slack, you bein' such a lightweight."

Her eyes sparkled as she felt the apportioned pull of the mouths of the
beautiful, live things; and he, looking at her, sparkled with her in her
delight.

"What's the good of a woman if she can't keep up with a man?" he broke
out enthusiastically.

"People that like the same things always get along best together," she
answered, with a triteness that concealed the joy that was hers at being
so spontaneously in touch with him.

"Why, Saxon, I've fought battles, good ones, frazzlin' my silk away
to beat the band before whisky-soaked, smokin' audiences of rotten
fight-fans, that just made me sick clean through. An' them, that
couldn't take just one stiff jolt or hook to jaw or stomach, a-cheerin'
me an' yellin' for blood. Blood, mind you! An' them without the blood of
a shrimp in their bodies. Why, honest, now, I'd sooner fight before an
audience of one--you for instance, or anybody I liked. It'd do me proud.
But them sickenin', sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and the
silk of mangy ky-yi's, a-cheerin' me--ME! Can you blame me for quittin'
the dirty game?--Why, I'd sooner fight before broke-down old plugs of
work-horses that's candidates for chicken-meat, than before them rotten
bunches of stiffs with nothin' thicker'n water in their veins, an'