enjoy it
greatly. Most of his time he spent sitting on the pasture-fence, smoking
his pipe and watching the grazing horses. To Chieftain alone he brought
great bunches of clover.

About the fifth day Tim grew restive. He had examined Chieftain's hoofs
and pronounced them well healed, but the superintendent said that it
would be a week before he should be ready to send another lot of horses
back to the city.

"How far is it by road?" asked Tim.

"Oh, two hundred miles or so," said the superintendent.

"Why not let me take Chieftain down that way? It'd be cheaper'n shippin'
him, an' do him good."

The superintendent only laughed and said he would ship Chieftain with
the others, when he was ready.

That evening Tim sat on the bench before the farm-house and smoked his
pipe until everyone else had gone to bed. The moon had risen, big and
yellow. In a pond behind the stables it seemed as if ten thousand frogs
had joined in one grand chorus. They were singing their mating song, if
you know what that is. It is not altogether a cheerful or harmonious
effort. Next to the soughing of a November wind it is, perhaps, the most
dismally lonesome sound in nature.

For two hours Tim Doyle smoked and thought and listened. Then he knocked
the ashes out of his pipe and decided that he had been long enough in
the country. He would walk to the station, two miles away, and take the
midnight train to the city. As he went down the farm road skirting the
pasture he saw in the moonlight the sheds where the horses went at night
for shelter. Moved by some sudden whim, he stopped and whistled. A
moment later a big horse appeared from under the shed and came toward
him, neighing gratefully. It was Chieftain.

"Well, Chieftain, me bye, I'll be lavin' ye for a spell. But I'll have
yer old stall ready against yer comin' back. Good-by, laddie," and with
this Tim patted Chieftain on the nose and started down the road. He had
gone but a few steps when he heard Chieftain whinny. Tim stopped
irresolutely, and then went on. Again came the call of the horse. There
was no misunderstanding its meaning. Tim walked back to the fence.

In the morning the farm superintendent found on the door-sill a roughly
pencilled note which read:

"Hav goan bak to the sitty P S chefetun warnted to goe so I tuk him. Tim
Doyle."

They were ten days on the road, ten delightful days of irresponsible
vagabondism. Sometimes Tim rode on Chieftain's back and sometimes he