eme disfavor.

But I had learned a trick of the cowboys. I pulled the wire off a couple
of posts at one side of the gate, laid them flat on the ground, and led
Shylock over them. Then I found a rock, pounded the staples back in place,
and went on; only for the tracks, one could not notice that any had passed
that way. Still, it was a bit ticklish, riding down King's Highway alone
and with no idea of what lay farther on. But dad had dared go that way,
and to fight at the far end; and what dad had not been afraid to tackle,
it did not behoove his son to back down from. I made Shylock walk the next
half-mile, with some notion of saving his wind for an emergency run.

Of a sudden I rounded a sharp nose of hill and came plump on the palace of
the King. It looked a good deal like the Bay State Ranch--big corrals and
sheds and stables, and little place for man to dwell. The house, though,
was bigger than ours, and looked more comfortable to live in. And the
thing that struck me most was the head which King displayed for strategy.
The trail wound between those same sheds and corrals, a gantlet two
hundred yards long that one must run or turn back. On either side the
bluffs rose sheer, with the buildings crowding close against their base.
I didn't wonder Frosty called King's Highway "bad medicine." It certainly
did look like it.

I went softly along that trail, turning sharp corners around a shed here,
circling a corral there, with my hand within an inch of my gun, and my
heart within an inch of my teeth, and you may laugh all you like.

No one seemed to be about; the sheds were deserted, and a few horses dozed
in a corral that I passed; but human being I saw none. It was evident that
King did not consider his enemy worth watching. I passed the last shed and
found myself headed straight for the house; I had still to get through its
very dooryard before I was in any position to crow, and beyond the house
was another fence; I hoped the gate was not locked. Shylock pricked up
his ears, then laid them back along his neck as if he did not approve the
layout, either. But we ambled right along, like a deacon headed for
prayer-meeting, and I tried to look in four different directions at one
and the same time.

For that reason, I didn't see her till she stood right in front of me; and
when I did, I stared like an idiot. It was a girl, and she was coming down
a path to the trail, with her hands full of flowers, for all the world
like