the horse-wise. The auctioneer was struggling to raise
a bid.

"Will any one bid on this fine young colt? All he needs is oats, and a
few other things."

A laugh went up, which was just what the auctioneer wanted, for
merriment is essential to a successful sale.

"Here now, boys, who will start him at five dollars? And him worth a
hundred."

It was too much for Hartigan. He raised his finger to the auctioneer.

"There, now, there's a preacher that knows a horse," he prattled away,
but no second offer came, and the colt was knocked down to Hartigan for
five greasy dollars.

"A good clean-down is worth a bushel of oats to a horse," is old stable
wisdom, "and a deal cheaper," as Hartigan added. Within the hour Blazing
Star, as the new owner named him from the star blaze in his forehead,
was rubbed and curry-combed as probably he never had been in his life
before. He was fed with a little grain and an abundance of prairie hay,
his wounds were painted with iodine and his mane was plaited. He was
handled from forelock to fetlock and rubbed and massaged like a
prizefighter who is out for mighty stakes.

"They are just like humans," Hartigan remarked to the "perchers" at
Shives's blacksmith shop. "All they need is kindness and common sense."

Before a month had gone, Hartigan was offered fifty dollars for the
colt; and this in a land where twenty-five dollars is the usual price
for a saddle horse. In truth, no one would have recognized this fine,
spirited young horse as the sorry jade that landed in the town a short
four weeks before. But Hartigan, who had a trainer's eye, said to Shives
and the "perchers":

"Wait for two months and then you will see something."

And they did. They saw the young Achilles riding down the street on the
wonderful chosen steed of all the herd. There were perfectly balanced
life and power in every move of both, the eagerness to up and do, the
grace of consummate animalism. They had seen many a fine man on a noble
horse, but never before had they beheld a picture so satisfying to both
eye and heart as that of the Preacher on his five-dollar steed.

Five miles from Cedar Mountain is Fort Ryan and to the south of it a
plain, where every year in the first week of July the Indians gather in
their tepees and the whites in tents and prairie schooners for a sort of
fair, in which are many kinds of sin on the largest scale. Herds of
horses are there, and racing is a favourite sport. It was here