d and swung
out of the yard at a lope. The pinto had ideas of his own. Should he
buck in the yard, he would immediately be roped and turned into the
corral again. Out on the mesas it would be different--and it was.

He paid no attention to a tumble-weed gyrating across the Apache road.
Neither did he seem disturbed when a rattler burred in the bunch-grass.
Even the startled leap of a rabbit that shot athwart his immediate
course was greeted with nothing more than a snort and a toss of his
swinging head. Such things were excuses for bad behavior, but he was
of that type which furnishes its own excuse. He would lull his rider
to a false security, and then . . .

The pinto loped over level and rise tirelessly. Sundown stood in his
stirrups and gazed ahead. The wide mesas glowing in the sun, the sense
of illimitable freedom, the keen, odorless air wrought him to a pitch
of inspiration. He would, just over the next rise, draw rein and woo
his muse. But the next rise and the next swept beneath the pinto's
rhythmic hoofs. The poetry of motion swayed his soul. He was enjoying
himself. At last, he reflected, he had mastered the art of sitting a
horse. He had already mastered the art of mounting and of descending
under various conditions and at seemingly impossible angles. As Hi
Wingle had once remarked--Sundown was the most _durable_ rider on the
range. His length of limb had no apparent relation to his shortcomings
as a vaquero.

Curiosity, as well as pride, may precede a fall. Sundown eventually
reined up and breathed the pinto, which paced with lowered head as
though dejected and altogether weary--which was merely a pose, if an
object in motion can be said to pose. His rider, relaxing, slouched in
the saddle and dreamed of a peaceful and domestic future as owner of a
small herd of cattle, a few fenced acres of alfalfa and vegetables, a
saddle-horse something like the pinto which he bestrode, with Chance as
companion and audience--and perhaps a low-voiced senora to welcome him
at night when he rode in with spur-chains jingling and the silver
conchas on his chaps gleaming like stars in the setting sun. "But me
chaps did their last gleam in that there fire," he reflected sadly.
"But I got me big spurs yet." Which after-thought served in a measure
to mitigate his melancholy. Like a true knight, he had slept spurred
and belted for the chance encounter while held in durance vile at
Antelope. "But me ranch!"