abit, Pete jabbed him with the spur,
to straighten him back in the road again. Pete had barely time to
mutter an audible "I thought so!" when Blue Smoke humped himself. Pete
slackened to the first wild lunge, grabbed off his hat and swung it as
Blue Smoke struck at the air with his fore feet, as though trying to
climb an invisible ladder. Pete swayed back as the horse came down in
a mighty leap forward, and hooking his spurs in the cinch, rocked to
each leap and lunge like a leaf caught up in a desert whirlwind. When
Pete saw that Smoke's first fine frenzy had about evaporated, he urged
him to further endeavors with the spurs, but Blue Smoke only grunted
and dropped off into a most becoming and gentlemanly lope. And Pete
was not altogether displeased. His back felt as though it had been
seared with a branding-iron, and the range to the west was heaving most
indecorously, cavorting around the horizon as though strangely excited
by Blue Smoke's sudden and seemingly unaccountable behavior.

"I reckon we're both feelin' better!" Pete told the pony. "I needed
jest that kind of a jolt to feel like I was livin' ag'in. But you
needn't be in such a doggone hurry to go and tell your friends how good
you're feelin'. Jest come down off that lope. We got all day to git
there."

Blue Smoke shook his head as Pete pulled him to a trot. The cactus
forest was behind them. Ahead lay the open, warm brown in the sun, and
across it ran a dwindling grayish line, the road that ran east and west
across the desert,--a good enough road as desert roads go, but Pete,
despite his satisfaction in being out in the open again, grew somewhat
tired of its monotonously even wagon-rutted width, and longed for a
trail--a faint, meandering trail that would swing from the road, dip
into a sand arroyo, edge slanting up the farther bank, wriggle round a
cluster of small hills, shoot out across a mesa, and climb slowly
toward those hills to the west, finally to contort itself into
serpentine switchbacks as it sought the crest--and once on the crest
(which was in reality but the visible edge of another great mesa),
there would be grass for a horse and cedar-wood for a fire, and water
with which to make coffee.

Pete had planned that his first night should be spent in the open, with
no other companions than the friendly stars. As for Blue Smoke, well,
a horse is the best kind of a pal for a man who wishes to be alone, a
pal who takes care of himsel