tanding like a rock until Helen May was settled in the saddle
and Starr had turned the stirrups on their sides in the leather so that
they would come nearer being the right length for her. Starr's hand
sliding affectionately up Rabbit's neck and resting a moment on his jaw
was all the assurance Rabbit needed that everything was all right.

"Now, just leave the reins loose, and let Rabbit come along to please
himself," Starr instructed her quietly. "He'll follow me, and he'll pick
his own trail. You don't have to do a thing but sit there and take it
easy. He'll do the rest."

Helen May looked at him doubtfully, but she did not say anything. She
braced herself in the stirrups, took a firm grip of the saddlehorn with
one hand, and waited for what might befall. She had no fear of Starr, no
further uneasiness over the coming night, the loneliness, the goats, or
anything else. She felt as irresponsible, as safe, as any sheltered woman
in her own home. I did not say she felt serene; she did not know yet how
the horse would perform; but she seemed to lay that responsibility also
on Starr's capable shoulders.

They moved off quietly enough, Starr afoot and driving the goats, Rabbit
picking his way after him in leisurely fashion. So they crossed the
arroyo mouth and climbed the ragged lip of its western side and traveled
straight toward the flaming eye of the sun that seemed now to have winked
itself nearly shut. The goats for some inexplicable reason showed no
further disposition to go in nine different directions at once. Helen
May relaxed from her stiff-muscled posture and began to experiment a
little with the reins.

"Why, he steers easier than an automobile!" she exclaimed suddenly. "You
just think which way you want to go, almost, and he does it. And you
don't have to pull the lines the least bit, do you?"

Starr delayed his answer until he had made sure that she was not
irritating Rabbit with a too-officious guidance. When he saw that she
was holding the reins loosely as he had told her to do, and was merely
laying the weight of a rein on one side of the neck and then on the
other, he smiled.

"I guess you've rode before," he hazarded. "The way you neck-rein--"

"No, honest. But my chum's brother had a big six, and Sundays he used to
let me fuss with it, away out where the road was clear. It steered just
like this horse; just as easy, I mean. I--why, see! I just _wondered_ if
he'd go to the right of that bush, and h