ou can get
folks to pay fer 'em. But it looks like one horse ort to be enough to
prospect 'round the hills on."

"It isn't that," explained the girl. "If I buy him I shall try to
arrange with you to leave him right here where I can get him at a
moment's notice. I shall probably never need him but once, but when I
do, I shall need him badly." She paused, but without comment the man
waited for her to proceed: "I believe I am being followed, and if I
am, when I locate the claim, I am going to have to race for the
register's office."

Thompson leaned forward upon the table and chewed his toothpick
rapidly: "By Gosh, an' you want to have a fresh horse here for a
change!" he exclaimed, his eyes beaming approval.

"Exactly. Have you got the horse?"

The man nodded: "You bet I've got the horse! I've got a horse out
there in the corral that'll run rings around anythin' in this country
unless it's that there buckskin of Vil Holland's--an' I guess you
ain't goin' to have no call to race him."

Patty was on the point of exclaiming that the buckskin was the very
horse she would have to race, but instead she smiled: "But, if your
horse started fresh from here, and even Vil Holland's horse had run
clear from the mountains, this one could beat him to town, couldn't
he?"

"Could do it on three legs," laughed the man.

"How much do you ask for him?" The girl waited breathless, thinking of
her diminishing bank account.

Thompson's brow wrinkled: "I hold Lightnin' pretty high," he said,
after a pause. "You see, some of us ranchers is holdin' a fast horse
handy, a-waitin' fer word from the hills--an' when it comes, they's
goin' to be the biggest horse-thief round-up the hill country ever
seen. An' unless I miss my guess they'll be some that's carried their
nose pretty high that's goin' to snap down on the end of a tight one."

"Now, Thompson, what's the use of talkin' like that? Them things is
bad enough to have to do, let alone set around an' talk about 'em.
Anyone'd think you took pleasure in hangin' folks."

"I would--some folks."

The little woman turned to Patty: "He's just a-talkin'. Chances is, if
it come to hangin', Thompson would be the one to try an' talk 'em out
of it. Why, he won't even brand his own colts an' calves--makes the
hands do it."

"That's different," defended the man. "They're little an' young an'
they ain't never done nothin' ornery."

"But you haven't told me how much you want for your horse," per