saddle.

This, remember, was the fourth day since the Kid rode down through
the little pasture and stood on a piece of fence-post so that he
could fasten the gate. Men had given up hope of finding him alive and
unharmed. They searched now for his body. And then the three women
who lived with Miss Allen began to inquire about the girl, and so the
warning went out that Miss Allen was lost; and they began looking for
her also.

Miss Allen, along towards noon of that fourth day, found a small
stream of water that was fit to drink. Beside the stream she found the
footprints of a child, and they looked quite fresh--as if they had been
made that day. She whipped up her flagging energy and went on hopefully.

It was a long while afterwards that she met him coming down a canyon on
his horse. It must have been past three o'clock, and Miss Allen could
scarcely drag herself along. When she saw him she turned faint, and sat
down heavily on the steep-sloping bank.

The Kid rode up and stopped beside her. His face was terribly dirty and
streaked with the marks of tears he would never acknowledge afterwards.
He seemed to be all right, though, and because of his ignorance of the
danger he had been in he did not seem to have suffered half as much as
had Miss Allen.

"Howdy do," he greeted her, and smiled his adorable little smile that
was like the Little Doctor's. "Are you the lady up on the hill? Do you
know where the bunch is? I'm--lookin' for the bunch."

Miss Allen found strength enough to stand up and put her arms around
him as he sat very straight in his little stock saddle; she hugged him
tight.

"You poor baby!" she cried, and her eyes were blurred with tears. "You
poor little lost baby!"

"I ain't a baby!" The Kid pulled himself free. "I'm six years old goin'
on thirty. I'm a rell ole cowpuncher. I can slap a saddle on my string
and ride like a son-a-gun. And I can put the bridle on him my own self
and everything. I--I was lookin' for the bunch. I had to make a dry-camp
and my doughnuts is smashed up and the jelly glass broke but I never
cried when a skink came. I shooed him away and I never cried once. I'm a
rell ole cowpuncher, ain't I? I ain't afraid of skinks. I frowed a rock
at him and I said, git outa here, you damn old skink or I'll knock your
block off!' You oughter seen him go! I--I sure made him hard to ketch,
by cripes!"

Miss Allen stepped back and the twinkle came into her eyes and the
whimsical twist to