oked after day and night again just the same as ever. So it took near
a month before he was regularly on his pins again, and going about as
he did before he was hit. His right arm was a bit stiff, too; it used to
pain and make him swear awful now and again. Anyhow, Aileen made us that
comfortable and happy while she was there, we didn't care how long he
took getting well.

Those were out and out the pleasantest days we ever spent in the
Hollow--the best time almost Jim and I had had since we were boys.
Nearly every day we rode out in the afternoon, and there wasn't a hole
or corner, a spring or a creek inside the walls of the old Hollow that
we didn't show Aileen. She was that sort of girl she took an interest
in everything; she began to know all the horses and cattle as well as
we did ourselves. Rainbow was regular given up to her, and the old horse
after a bit knew her as well as his master. I never seen a decent horse
that didn't like to have a woman on his back; that is, if she was young
and lissom and could ride a bit. They seem to know, in a sort of way.
I've seen horses that were no chop for a man to ride, and that wouldn't
be particular about bucking you off if the least thing started them, but
went as quiet as mice with a girl on their backs.

So Aileen used to make Rainbow walk and amble his best, so that all the
rest of us, when she did it for fun, had to jog. Then she'd jump him
over logs or the little trickling deep creeks that ran down to the main
water; or she'd pretend to have a race and go off full gallop, riding
him at his best for a quarter of a mile; then he'd pull up as easy as if
he'd never gone out of a walk.

'How strange all this is,' she said one day; 'I feel as if I were living
on an island. It's quite like playing at "Robinson Crusoe", only there's
no sea. We don't seem to be able to get out all the same. It's a happy,
peaceful life, too. Why can't we keep on for ever like this, and shut
out the wicked, sorrowful world altogether?'

'Quite of your opinion, Miss Marston; why should we ever change?' says
Starlight, who was sitting down with the rest of us by the side of our
biggest river. We had been fishing all the afternoon and done well. 'Let
us go home no more; I am quite contented. But what about poor Jim? He
looks sadder every day.'

'He is fretting for his wife, poor fellow, and I don't wonder. You are
one of those natures that never change, Jim; and if you don't get away
soon, or s