ing to paw the ground, prancing
again nervously. She held firm grip on his bridle, however, and sharply
rebuked him. "Pat," she exclaimed, "this is a new trait!" And then,
before he could resist again, she caught hold of the saddle-horn, leaped
up, hardly touching the stirrup, and gathered the reins quickly to meet
further rebellion.

But with her in the saddle Pat was quite another horse. He snapped his
ears at attention, wheeled to the gate, and cantered briskly out of the
corral.

It was a beautiful morning. The air nipped with a tang of frost, and she
rode swiftly through town and up the hill to the mesa in keen
exhilaration. Once on the mesa, Pat dashed off ecstatically in the
direction of the mountains. The pace was thrilling. The rush of the
crisp wind, together with the joy of swift motion, sent tingling blood
into Helen's cheeks, while the horse, racing along at top speed, flung
out his hoofs with a vigor that told of the riot of blood within him.
Thus they continued, until in the shadow of the mountains--just now
draped in their most delicate coloring, the pink that accompanies
sunbeams streaming through fading haze--she pulled Pat down and gave
herself over to the beauty of the scene. The horse, also appreciative,
came to a ready stop and turned his eyes out over the desert in
slow-blinking earnestness.

"Pat!" suddenly cried Helen. She pulled his head gently around in the
direction of the mountain trail. "Look off there!"

Above the distant trail hung a thin cloud of dust, and under the cloud
of dust, and rolling heavily toward town, creaked a lumber rigging,
piled high with wood and drawn by a pair of plodding horses--plodding
despite the bite and snarl of a whip swung with merciless regularity.
The whip was in the hands of a brawny Mexican, who, seated confidently
on the high load, appeared utterly indifferent to the trembling
endeavors of his scrawny team. He was inhaling the smoke of a cigarette,
and with every puff mechanically flaying the horses. The spectacle
aroused deep sympathy in the girl.

"Only consider, Pat!" she exclaimed, after a while. "Those poor,
miserable horses--half-starved, cruelly beaten, yet of God's own
making!" She was silent. "Suppose you had been born to that service,
Pat--born to that oppression! You are one of the fortunate!" And she
bent forward and stroked him. "One of the fortunate!" she repeated,
thoughtfully.

Indeed Pat was just that. But not in the way Helen mean