o the occasion.

"And how about the little eohippus?" she demanded. "That doesn't seem to
go well with some of your other talk."

"Oh!" He regarded her with pained but unflinching innocence. "The
Latin, you mean? Why, ma'am, that's most all the Latin I know--that and
some more big words in that song. I learned that song off of Frank John,
just like a poll-parrot."

"Sing it! And eohippus isn't Latin. It's Greek."

"Why, ma'am, I can't, just now--I'm so muddy; but I'll tell it to you.
Maybe I'll sing it to you some other time." A sidelong glance
accompanied this little suggestion. The girl's face was blank and
non-committal; so he resumed: "It goes like this:

"Said the little Eohippus,
'I'm going to be a horse,
And on my middle fingernails
To run my earthly course'----

"No; that wasn't the first. It begins:

"There was once a little animal
No bigger than a fox,
And on five toes he scampered----

"Of course you know, ma'am--Frank John he told me about it--that horses
were little like that, 'way back. And this one he set his silly head
that he was going to be a really-truly horse, like the song says. And
folks told him he couldn't--couldn't possibly be done, nohow. And sure
enough he did. It's a foolish song, really. I only sing parts of it when
I feel like that--like it couldn't be done and I was going to do it, you
know. The boys call it my song. Look here, ma'am!" He fished in his vest
pocket and produced tobacco and papers, matches--last of all, a tiny
turquoise horse, an inch long. "I had a jeweler-man put five toes on his
feet once to make him be a little eohippus. Going to make a watch-charm
of him sometime. He's a lucky little eohippus, I think. Peso gave him to
me when--never mind when. Peso's a Mescalero Indian, you know, chief of
police at the agency." He gingerly dropped the little horse into her
eager palm.

It was a singularly grotesque and angular little beast, high-stepping,
high-headed, with a level stare, at once complacent and haughty. Despite
the first unprepossessing rigidity of outline, there was somehow a
sprightly air, something endearing, in the stiff, purposed stride, the
alert, inquiring ears, the stern and watchful eye. Each tiny hoof was
faintly graven to semblance of five tinier toes; there, the work showed
fresh.

"The cunning little monster!" Prison grime was on him; she groomed and
polished at his dingy sides until the wonderful colo