a outside the professional class.

Ordinarily Mary V would never have thought of such a thing as riding
Jake. She would have considered it as much as her life was worth to put
her saddle on him without first asking Bill. Once she had asked Bill, and
Bill had looked as if she had asked for his toothbrush; shocked,
incredulous, as though he could not believe his ears. "Well, I should
sa-ay not!" Bill had replied when she had made it plain that she expected
an answer.

Ordinarily that would be accepted as final, even by Mary V. But
ordinarily Mary V did not climb out of her bedroom window to ride all
night, even though there was a perfectly intoxicating moon. Certainly not
to a far line-camp where a young man lived alone, just to ask him why
some one else answered his telephone for him.

To-night was her night for extraordinary behavior, evidently. She
certainly showed that she had designs on Jake. She held out the feed pan,
and gritted her teeth when Tango gratefully ducked his nose into it. She
let him have one quivery-lipped nibble, and pushed the pan ingratiatingly
toward the black muzzle beyond.

Jake was not a bronk. Having "good blood" he was tame to a degree. He
knew Mary V very well by sight, and, if horses can talk, he had no doubt
learned a good deal about her from his friend Tango, who usually came
home with a grievance. Jake accepted the feed pan graciously, and he did
not shy off when Mary V pushed Tango out of her way and began to smooth
Jake's crinkly mane and coax him with endearing words. After a little he
permitted her to slip the bridle reins over his head, and to press the
bit gently into his mouth. She set the pan on the ground and so managed
to tuck his stiff, brown ears under the headstall, and to pull out his
forelock comfortably while he nosed the pan. The bridge was too small for
Jake, but Mary V thought it would do, since she was in a great hurry and
the buckles would be stiff and hard to open. The throat latch would not
fasten where Tango always wore it, but went down three holes farther.
Jake was bigger than she had thought.

But she led him over to the shed door and adjusted the saddle blanket
and, standing on her tip-toes, managed to heave her saddle into place.
The cinch had to be let out too. Mary V was trembling with impatience to
be gone, now that she had two heinous sins loaded upon her conscience
instead of one, but she knew better than to start off before her saddle
was right. An