gnetism to
the team.

Boyar and Apache took advantage of every turn, pitch, steep descent, and
ford to display the demoniacal ingenuity inspired by their outraged
feelings. They were splendid, obedient saddle-animals. But to be buckled
and strapped in irritating harness, and hitched to that four-wheeled
disgrace, a buckboard!...

Anne Marshall chatted happily with Louise, punctuating her lively
chatter with subdued little cries of delight as some new turn in the
trail opened on a vista unimaginably beautiful, especially to her
Eastern eyes.

Young Dr. Marshall, in the front seat with Collie, braced his feet and
smiled. _He_ had had experience, in an East-Side ambulance, but then
that had been over level streets. He glanced over the edge of the canon
road and his smile faded a little. It faded entirely as the front wheel
sheared off a generous shovelful of earth from a sharp upright angle of
the hill as the team took the turn at a gallop. The young physician had
a sense of humor, which is the next best thing to courage, although he
had plenty of his kind of courage also. He brushed the earth from his
lap.

"The road needs widening there, anyway," commented Collie, as though
apologizing.

"I have my--er--repair kit with me," said the genial doctor. "I'm a
surgeon."

Collie nodded, but kept his eyes rigidly on the horses. Evidently this
immaculate, of the white collar and cuffs and the stylish gray tweeds,
had "sand."

"They're a little fussy--but I know 'em," said Collie, as Boyar,
apparently terror-stricken at a manzanita that he had passed hundreds of
times, reared, his fore feet pawing space and the traces dangerously
slack. Louise bit her lower lip and quickly called Anne's attention to a
spot of vivid color on the hillside. To Dr. Marshall's surprise, Collie
struck Apache, who was behaving, smartly with the whip. Apache leaped
forward, bringing Boyar down to his feet again. The doctor would have
been inclined to strike Boyar for misbehaving. He saw Collie's wisdom
and smiled. To have punished Boyar when already on his hind feet would
have been folly.

At the top of the next grade the lathering, restive ponies finally
settled to a stubborn trot. "Mad clean through," said Collie.

"I should say they were behaving well enough," said the doctor, not as
much as an opinion as to relieve his tense nerves in speech.

"When a bronc' gets to acting ladylike, then is the time to look out,"
said Collie. "Boyar and