I've spent as
much as twenty-five dollars on a circus, before now, and felt that I got
the worth of my money, too. I'm going to enjoy myself real well, next
Sunday."

Jerry glanced behind him and lowered his voice, speaking close to Bud's
ear. "Well, there's something I'd like to say that it ain't safe to say,
Bud. I'd hate like hell to see you get in trouble. Go as far as you like
having fun--but--oh, hell! What's the use?" He turned abruptly and went
inside, leaving Bud staring after him rather blankly.

Jerry did not strike Bud as being the kind of a man who goes
around interfering with every other man's business. He was a quiet,
good-natured young fellow with quizzical eyes of that mixed color which
we call hazel simply because there is more brown than gray or green. He
did not talk much, but he observed much. Bud was strongly inclined
to heed Jerry's warning, but it was too vague to have any practical
value--"about like Hen's note," Bud concluded. "Well-meaning but hazy.
Like a red danger flag on a railroad crossing where the track is torn
up and moved. I saw one, once and my horse threw a fit at it and almost
piled me. I figured that the red flag created the danger, where I was
concerned. Still, I'd like to oblige Jerry and sidestep something or
other, but..."

His thoughts grew less distinct, merged into wordless rememberings and
conjectures, clarified again into terse sentences which never reached
the medium of speech.

"Well, I'll just make sure they don't try out Smoke when I'm not
looking," he decided, and slipped away in the dark.

By a roundabout way which avoided the trail he managed to reach the
pasture fence without being seen. No horses grazed in sight, and he
climbed through and went picking his way across the lumpy meadow in the
starlight. At the farther side he found the horses standing out on a
sandy ridge where the mosquitoes were not quite so pestiferous. The
Little Lost horses snorted and took to their heels, his three following
for a short distance.

Bud stopped and whistled a peculiar call invented long ago when he was
just Buddy, and watched over the Tomahawk REMUDA. Every horse with the
Tomahawk brand knew that summons--though not every horse would obey
it. But these three had come when they were sucking colts, if Buddy
whistled; and in their breaking and training, in the long trip north,
they had not questioned its authority. They turned and trotted back to
him now and nosed Bud's ha