ame to die. No frontiersman, in a land where
prairie fires spread as the breath of scandal, ever leaves fire alive
when out of his sight; and to this instinct the Indian was true. Minute
after minute he waited; until the flame vanished and in its stead there
lay a mass of blazing coals. Then with a practical hand he banked the
whole with a layer of earth until, look where one would, not a dot of
red was visible. The act was the last, the culmination of preparation.
At its end, with a single spoken command, the pony was alongside; his
head high in the air, his tiny ears flattened back in anticipation. Well
he knew what was in store, what was expected. No need was there of a
second command nor the touch of a bridle rein. Almost ere the taking of
the single leap that put the rider in his seat the little beast was
away, his wide-spread nostrils breathing deep of the prairie air, the
patter of his tiny hoofs a continuous song upon the close-cropped sod.
As two human beings living side by side grow to know each other, so this
dumb menial had grown to know his master. With a certainty attributed to
the dog alone he had learned to recognise the mood of the hour. He did
so now; and as time passed and the miles flowed monotonously beneath his
galloping feet the relentless determination of the man himself was
repeated in that undeviating pace.

Thus the journey southward was begun. Thus through the dragging hours of
the September afternoon it continued. Many a time before the little
beast had followed the trail from sun to sun. As well as the rider knew
his own endurance he knew the possibilities of his mount, knew that now
he would not fail. He did not attempt to quicken the pace, nor did he
check it. He spoke no word. The earth was dry as tinder in the annual
drouth of fall, and as time passed on the dust the pony raised collected
upon the man's clothes and upon his bare head; but apparently he noticed
it not. Shade by shade the mouse-coloured hair of the broncho grew
darker from sweat, moistened until the man's hand on the diminutive
beast's neck grew wet; but of this likewise he was unconscious. Silent
as fate, as nature the immovable, he sat his place; his lithe body
conforming involuntarily to the motion, to the play of muscles beneath
his legs; yet as unconsciously as one breathes in sleep. Not until the
sun was red in the west, until of its own accord the broncho had drawn
up at the first bit of water they had met on the wa