t and a furlong beyond before either could
pull up. Pop was pale and triumphant, and breathing harder than his
mount.

"Here 's your dollar, Pop--and don't you talk in your sleep!" Bud
admonished, smiling as he held out the dollar, but with an anxious
tone in his voice. "If this is the best running horse you've got in the
valley, I may get some action, next Sunday!"

Pop dismounted, took the dollar with a grin and mounted Boise--and that
in spite of the fact that Boise was keyed up and stepping around and
snorting for another race. Bud watched Pop queerly, remembering how
feeble had been the old man whom he had met at the corral.

"Say, Pop, you ought to race a little every day," he bantered. "You're
fifteen years younger than you were an hour ago."

For answer Pop felt of his back and groaned. "Oh, I'll pay fer it, young
feller! I don't look fer much peace with my back fer a week, after this.
But you kin make sure of one thing, and that is, I ain't goin' to talk
in my sleep none. By Christmas, We'll make this horse of yours bring
us in something! I guess you better turn yore horses all out in the
pasture. Dave, he'll give yuh work all right. I'll fix it with Dave.
And you listen to Pop, young feller. I'll show ye a thing or two
about runnin' horses. You'n me'll clean up a nice little bunch of
money-HE-HE!-beat Boise in a quarter dash! Tell that to Dave, an' he
wouldn't b'lieve ye!"

When Pop got off at the back of the stable he could scarcely move,
he was so stiff. But his mind was working well enough to see that Bud
rubbed the saddle print off Boise and turned his own horses loose in the
pasture, before he let him go on to the house. The last Bud heard from
Pop that forenoon was a senile chuckle and a cackling, "Outrun Boise
in a quarter dash! Shucks a'mighty! But I knew it--I knew he had the
speed--sho! Ye can't fool ole Pop--shucks!"

CHAPTER TEN: BUD MEETS THE WOMAN

A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with crooked
sticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her hair Bud knew that
she was not Honey, and that she was therefore a stranger to him. But he
swung off the path and went over to her as naturally as he would go to
pick up a baby that had fallen.

"I'll carry that in for you," he said, and put out his hand to help her
to her feet.

Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him. Bud could
not remember afterwards that she had done anything else; he seemed to