half so
fine-looking if you were fat. I _always_ sigh when I don't know what to
do. Then I just saddle Boy and ride. And I'll _never_ let myself get
fat."

"A vow is a vow--at sixteen."

"Now I _know_ you need exercise. You're getting reminiscent, and that's
a sign of torpid liver."

Walter Stone laughed till the tears came. "Exercise!" he exclaimed. "Ah!
I begin to divine a subtle method in your doctrine of health. Ah, ha! I
look well on a horse! I need exercise! It's a very satisfactory ride
from here to town and back. Incidentally, Louise, I smell a rat. I used
to be able to hold my own."

"It isn't my fault if you don't now," said Louise, snuggling in his
arm.

"That's unworthy of you!" he growled, his arm tightening round her slim
young figure. "Tell me, sweetheart; how is it that you can be so
thoroughly practical and so unfathomably romantic in the same breath?
You have deliberately shattered me to bits that you might mould me
nearer to your heart's desire. And your heart's desire, just now, is to
help an unknown, a tramp, out of jail."

Louise pouted. "You say 'just now' as though my heart's desires weren't
very serious matters as a rule. You _know_ you wouldn't be half so happy
if I didn't tease you for something at least once a week. I remember
once I didn't ask you for anything for a whole week, and you went and
asked Aunty Eleanor if I were ill. Besides, the boy _needs_ help,
whether he did anything wrong or not. Can't you understand?"

"That's utopian, Louise, but it isn't generally practicable."

"Then make it individually practicable, uncle--just this time. Pshaw! I
don't believe you're half-trying to argue. Why, when Boyar bucked you
off that time and ran into the barb-wire, then _he_ didn't need
doctoring for that awful cut on his shoulder, because he had done
wrong."

"That is no parallel, Louise. Boyar didn't know any better. And this boy
is not sick or injured."

"How do you know that? He's down in that terribly hot, smelly jail. If
he did get sick, who would know it?"

"And Boyar isn't a human being. He can't reason."

"Oh, Uncle Walter! I thought you knew horses better than that. Boyar can
reason much better than most people."

"The proof being that he prefers you to any one else?"

"No," replied Louise, smiling mischievously. "That isn't Boyar's
_reason_; it's his affection. That's different."

"Yes, quite different," said Walter Stone. "Is this boy good-looking?"
And the ranc