You give thot _caballo_ to me."

Felipe turned to the team. "I give you one keeck in thee belly!" he
roared. Then he touched up the horses and started back toward the house.
Gone was all elation, all pride, all gleeful consciousness of
possession.

Gaining the clearing, he decided to try out the other horse with the
black. He realized that the aged mare was unfit, even though in the last
hour she had appeared greatly to improve, and he must accordingly match
up a team. So he unhitched her and swung the mate into place. He met
with disagreeable surprise, however. The black would not pull with this
horse. Instead, he held himself quietly at rest, gazing about sleepily
over the landscape, a trick of his, as Felipe had learned, when quietly
rebelling. Felipe looked at him a moment, but did not try to force him
with tongue or lash. For he was coming to understand this horse, and,
concluding that sooner or later, under proper treatment, he would
probably accept duty with any mate, determined to abandon work for the
day. Whereupon he unhitched the horses and led them all back into the
corral. Then he put up the bars and set out in the direction of the
settlement.

Which ended Pat's second great lesson at the hand of man. He was sore
and somewhat stiff from the struggle, but he did not fret long over his
condition, for he soon awoke to the presence of that beside him in the
corral which caused him to forget himself completely. It was the
worn-out structure of skin and bones who had befriended him in his hour
of trial. He gazed at her a moment, then approached and fell to
caressing her, showing in this attention his power to forget
self--aches, sores, troubles--in his affection and gratitude toward all
things warranting affection and gratitude.

CHAPTER X

THE STRANGER AGAIN

Meantime, Helen was becoming desperate over her loss. Unwilling to
accept the theory of her household, which was that Pat had been stolen
by a band of organized thieves and ere this was well out of the
neighborhood and probably the county, she had held firmly to her
original idea, _viz._, that the horse was in the possession of his
rightful owners, and so could not be far out of the community.
Therefore, the morning following his disappearance, having with sober
reflection lightened within her the seriousness of it all, she had set
out in confident search for him, mounted on her brown saddler. But
though she had combed the town and the tra