p at him with the blank stare of preoccupation, and changed
expression as the question filtered into his brain and fitted somehow
into the puzzle. He grinned, said maybe he would, folded the sheet of
paper filled with what looked like a meaningless jumble of letters
and figures, bought a plat of that township and begged some government
pamphlets, and went out humming a little tune just above a whisper. At
the door he tilted his hat down at an angle over his right eye and took
long, eager steps toward an obscure hotel and his meagre baggage.

There was no train going east until midnight, and he caught that train.
This time he actually got off at Dry Lake, ate a hurried breakfast, got
his horse out of the livery stable and dug up the dust of the lane with
rapid hoof-beats so that he rode all the way to the first hill followed
by a rolling, gray cloud that never quite caught him.

When he rode down the Hog's Back he saw the Happy Family bunched around
some object on the creek-bank, and he heard the hysterical screaming of
the Kid up in the house, and saw the Old Man limping excitedly up and
down the porch. A man less astute than Andy Green would have known that
some thing had happened. He hurried down the last slope, galloped along
the creek-bottom, crossed the ford in a couple of leaps and pulled up
beside the group that surrounded Silver.

"What's been taking place here?" he demanded curiously, skipping the
usual greetings.

"Hell," said the Native Son succinctly, glancing up at him.

"Old Silver looked over the fence into Kingdom Come," Weary enlarged the
statement a little. "Tried to take a drink with a nose bag on. I guess
he'll come through all right."

"What ails the Kid?" Andy demanded, glancing toward the house whence
issued a fresh outburst of shrieks.

The Happy Family looked at one another and then at the White House.

"Aw, some folks hain't got a lick of sense when it comes to kids," Big
Medicine accused gruffly.

"The Kid," Weary explained, "put the nose bag on Silver and then left
the stable door open."

"They ain't--spanking him for it, are they?" Andy demanded
belligerently. "By gracious, how'd a kid know any better? Little bit of
a tad like that--"

"Aw, they don't never spank the Kid!" Slim defended the parents loyally.
"By golly, they's been times when I would-a spanked him, if it'd been
me. Countess says it's plumb ridiculous the way that Kid runs over
'em--rough shod. If he's gittin' span