table, and there Bud
halted the two with his lifted hand. Bud was trembling a little--but he
was smiling, too. Eddie was frankly grinning, Jerry's face was the face
of a good poker-player--it told nothing.

In a group with their backs to them stood three: Marian, Bud's mother
and his father. Bob Birnie held Boise by the bridle, and the two women
were stroking the brown nose of the horse that moved uneasily, with
little impatient head-tossings.

"He doesn't behave like a horse that has made the long trip he has
made," Bud's mother observed admiringly. "You must be a wonderful little
horsewoman, my dear, as well as a wonderful little woman in every other
way. Buddy should never have sent you on such a trip--just to bring home
money, like a bank messenger! But I'm glad that he did! And I do wish
you would consent to stay--such an afternoon with music I haven't had
since Buddy left us. You could stay with me and train for the
concert work you intend doing. I'm only an old ranch woman in a slat
sunbonnet--but I taught my Buddy--and have you heard him?"

"An old woman in a slat sunbonnet--oh, how can you? Why, you're the most
wonderful woman in the whole world." Marian's voice was almost tearful
in its protest. "Yes--I have heard--your Buddy."

"'T is the strangest way to go about selling a horse that I ever saw,"
Bob Birnie put in dryly, smoothing his beard while he looked at them.
"We'd be glad to have you stay, lass. But you've asked me to place a
price on the horse, and I should like to ask ye a question or two. How
fast did ye say he could run?"

Marian laid an arm around the shoulders of the old lady in a slat
sunbonnet and patted her arm while she answered.

"Well, he beat everything in the country, so they refused to race
against him, until Bud came with his horses," she replied. "It took
Sunfish to outrun him. He 's terribly fast, Mr. Birnie. I--really, I
think he could beat the world's record--if Bud rode him!"

Just here you should picture Ed and Jerry with their hands over their
mouths, and Bud wanting to hide his face with his hat.

Bob Birnie's beard behaved oddly for a minute, while he leaned and
stroked Boise's flat forelegs, that told of speed. "Wee-ll," he
hesitated, soft-heartedness battling with the horse-buyer's keenness,
"since Bud is na ere to ride him, he'll make a good horse for the
roundup. I'll give ye "--more battling--"a hundred and fifty dollars for
him, if ye care to sell--"

"Here, w