d get as weak
as a cat this quick?"

He took the chair just beyond her, tilted it back against the wall, his
booted heels caught under its elevated legs, and glanced away from her
to the colorful sky above San Juan's scattered houses in the west.

"Yes, sir," he continued his train of thought, "I'd like a horse
between my knees; I'd like to ride out yonder into the sunset, to meet
the night as it comes down; I'd like the feeling of nothing but the
stars over me instead of the smothery roof of a house. Doesn't it
appeal to you, too?"

"Yes," she said.

"You on Persis, with me on my big roan, riding not as we rode that
other night, but just for the fun of it. I'd like to ride like the
devil. . . . You don't mind my saying what I mean, do you? . . . to go
scooting across the sage-brush letting out a yell at every jump, boring
holes in the night with my gun, making all of the racket and dust that
one man can make. Ever feel that way? just like getting outside and
making a noise? Let me talk! I'm the one who has been shut up for so
long my tongue has started to grow fast to the roof of my mouth. At
first I could do nothing but lie flat on my back in a sort of fog,
seeing nothing clearly, thinking not at all. Then came the hours in
which I could do nothing but think, under orders to keep still. Think?
Why, I thought about everything that ever happened, most things that
might happen, and a whole lot that never will. Now comes the third
stage; I can talk better than I can walk. . . . Do you mind listening
while a man raves?"

"Not in the least." She found his mood contagious and, smiling in that
quick, bright way natural to her, showed for a moment the twin dimples
of which together with a host of other things he had had ample time to
think during his bedroom imprisonment. "Please rave on."

"In due course," he mused, "the fourth stage will arrive and I can be
doing something besides talk, can't I? Now let me tell you about the
King's Palace."

"You begin well."

"The King's Palace is where we are going on our first outing. That was
decided three days ago at four minutes after 6 A.M. You and I and, if
you like, Florrie and your kid brother. We'll ride out there in the
very early morning, in the saddle before the stars are gone. We'll
lunch and loaf there all day. For lunch we will have bacon and coffee,
cooked over a fire in one of the Palace anterooms. We will have some
trout, fried in the bacon-