fine
points; when lightly slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a
good bit of action.

"'She's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven; 'where did you get
her, Lory?'

"'Had her twelve years,' says Lory; 'brought her on from my Wyoming
ranch; she and a skullful of experience and a heartful of
disappointment made up about all two bad winters left of my ranch
investments. The freight on her made her look more like a back-set
than an asset, but she was a link of the old life I couldn't leave.'

"'Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, 'and if she'll run a bit and
jump, we may have some fun passin' her up to Jack.'

"So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled and mounts, and I
hope never to have another rub-down if she didn't gallop on like she'd
never done anything else--stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground
fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a fair pace. Then we
went into a narrow lane and I gave her a lead over some low bars, and
here came game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences and her
were old stable-mates.

"'Well, I _will_ be damned,' says Raven; 'she's a hoary wonder. Give
her a week of handlin' and trim her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at
a stiff price; he's so bent on his fad, he'll take a chance on her age.'

"And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laughter in the house
with them, while I began tippin' Molly a few useful points at the game
as soon as the groom left us in adjoinin' stalls.

"Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the hunt-club mews, and if
I'd not been on to their mischievous plot, I'll be fired if I'd known
her. It was a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, hogged
her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her hoofs, groomed, fed up,
and conditioned her, and (I do believe) polished her yellow old fangs,
till she looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see.

"And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and stalled, into an empty
box alongside of me slips Lory with Tom, the best whip and seat of our
hunt, and says Lory: 'You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, Tom.'

"'Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; 'hall in the day's work.'

"'Well, if you'll give the old gray mare a week's practice at wall and
timber, gettin' out early when none but the sun and the pair of you are
yet up, I'll give you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my place
the other day. But mind, it's your neck she may break at the first
w