ain; but again he darted away.
Whereupon she raced after him, pursuing him around the inclosure, the
colt frisking before her, kicking up his heels and nickering shrilly,
until, through breathlessness, she was forced to stop. Then the colt
stopped, and after a time, having regarded her steadfastly, invitingly,
he seemed to understand, for he quietly approached her. As he came close
she stooped before him.

"Honey dear," she began, eyes on a level with his own, "they have
telephoned the city officials, and your case will be advertised
to-morrow in the papers. But I do wish that I could keep you." She
peered into his slow-blinking eyes thoughtfully. "Brownie--my
saddle-horse--is all stable-ridden, and I need a good saddler. And some
day you would be grown, and I could--could take lots of comfort with
you." She was silent. "Anyway," she concluded, rising and stroking him
absently, "we'll see. Though I hope--and I know it isn't a bit
right--that nothing comes of the advertisement; or, if something does
come of it, that your rightful owner will prove willing to sell you
after a time." With this she picked up the bottle and left him.

And nothing did come of the advertisement. Felipe did not read the
papers, and his knowledge of city affairs was such that he did not set
up intelligent quest for the colt.

So the colt remained in the Richards' corral. Regularly two and three
times a day the girl came to feed him, and regularly as his reward each
time he bunted the bottle out of her hand afterward. Also, between meals
she spent much time in his society, and on these occasions relieved the
tedium of his diet with loaf sugar, and, after a while, quartered
apples. For these sweets he soon developed a passion, and he would watch
her comings with a feverish anxiety that always brought a smile to her
ready lips. And thus began, and thus went on, their friendship, a
friendship that with the passing months ripened into strongest
attachment, but which presently was to be interrupted for a long time.

Hint of this came to him gradually. From spending long periods with him
every day his mistress, after each feeding now, took to hurrying away
from him. Sometimes, so great was her haste to get back to the house,
she actually ran out of the corral. It worried him, and he would follow
her to the gate, and there stand with nose between the boards and eyes
turned after her, whimpering softly. And finally, with his bottle
displaced by more s