ered to fragments, but four remained intact, and the boy
rode back, muttering and disappointed.

He reasoned with his horse as he rode. "'Taint no use, you ol'
slop-eye; a fellow can't get the bede if he ain't got the fillin';
cooked meals an' decent chuck. I could plug 'em six out o' six--you
know that, you ol' flop-ears; don't you argue about it, neither--when
I'm right inside my belt I smash 'em six out o' six, but I ain't right,
an' you know it. You don't know nothin' about it; you never had a
father, leastways, you never had to be responsible for one. . . .
Well, it's comin' to a finish--a damn lame finish, you know that. You
know--"

But he had reloaded his revolver and set up two more bottles. This
time he broke four, and was better pleased with himself. As he rode
back his soliloquy was broken by a strange sound from beyond the belt
of trees. The horse pricked up his ears, and the boy turned in the
saddle to listen.

"Jumpin' crickets, what's loose?" he ejaculated. He knew every sound
of the foothill country, but this was strange to him. A kind of snort,
a sort of hiss; mechanical in its regularity, startling in its
strangeness, it came across the valley with the unbroken rhythm of a
watch-tick.

"Well, I guess it won't eat us," he ventured at last. "We'll just run
it down and perhaps poke a hole in it." So saying, he cantered along
the road which skirted the spruce trees, crossed the little stream and
swung up the hill on the farther side.

He was half way up when a turn in the road brought him into sudden
sight of the strange visitor. It was the first he had seen, but he
knew it at once, for the fame of the automobile, then in its
single-cylinder stage, had already spread into the farthest ranching
country. The horse was less well informed. Whether or not in that
moment he recognized the great rival of his race must be left to some
analyst of horse character, but he bucked and kicked in rage and
terror. But the boy was conscious not so much of the horse as of two
bright eyes turned on him in frank and surprised admiration.

"What horsemanship!" she exclaimed, but the words had scarce left her
lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken
a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars
that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a
violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half
plowed its way into