We keep him for the farms."

"Oh, I say, my friend," he rejoined--"my name's Orme, Gordon Orme--I'm
just stopping here at the inn for a time, and I'm deucedly bored. I've
not had leg over a decent mount since I've been here, and if I might
ride this beggar, I'd be awfully obliged."

My jaw may have dropped at his words; I am not sure. It was not that he
called our little tavern an "inn." It was the name he gave me which
caused me to start.

"Orme," said I, "Mr. Gordon Orme? That was the name of the speaker the
other evening here at the church of the Methodists."

He nodded, smiling. "Don't let that trouble you," said he.

None the less it did trouble me; for the truth was that word had gone
about to the effect that a new minister from some place not stated had
spoken from the pulpit on that evening upon no less a topic than the
ever present one of Southern slavery. Now, I could not clear it to my
mind how a minister of the gospel might take so keen and swift an
interest in a stranger in the street, and that stranger's horse. I
expressed to him something of my surprise.

"It's of no importance," said he again. "What seems to me of most
importance just at present is that here's a son of old Klingwalla, and
that I want to ride him."

"Just for the sake of saying you have done so?" I inquired.

His face changed swiftly as he answered: "We owned Klingwalla ourselves
back home. He broke a leg for my father, and was near killing him."

"Sir," I said to him, catching his thought quickly, "we could not afford
to have the horse injured, but if you wish to ride him fair or be beaten
by him fair, you are welcome to the chance."

His eye kindled at this. "You're a sportsman, sir," he exclaimed, and he
advanced at once toward Satan.

I saw in him something which awakened a responsive chord in my nature.
He was a man to take a risk and welcome it for the risk's sake.
Moreover, he was a horseman; as I saw by his quick glance over Satan's
furniture. He caught the cheek strap of the bridle, and motioned us away
as we would have helped him at the horse's head. Then ensued as pretty a
fight between man and horse as one could ask to see. The black brute
reared and fairly took him from the ground, fairly chased him about the
street, as a great dog would a rat. But never did the iron hold on the
bridle loosen, and the man was light on his feet as a boy. Finally he
had his chance, and with the lightest spring I ever saw at a saddle