close to Douce's rump and very carefully removed
the big, long hay. He took a fine chance of getting himself kicked, but
he did not tell the Kid that.

"That all right now, Buck?" Big Medicine wanted to know, when he had
accomplished the thing without accident.

"Oh, it'll do," was the frugal praise he got. "I've got to go and feed
my string, now. And after a while I'll water him. You want to feed your
horse always before you water him, 'cause eatin' makes him firsty. You
'member that, now."

"I'll sure try to, Buck," Big Medicine promised soberly, and watched the
Kid go striding away with his hat tilted at the approved Happy-Family
angle and his small hands in his pockets. Big Medicine was thinking of
his own kid, and wondering what he was like, and if he remembered his
dad. He waved his hand in cordial farewell when the Kid looked back
and wrinkled his nose in the adorable, Little-Doctor smile he had, and
turned his attention to Deuce.

The Kid made straight for the box stall and told Silver hello over the
half door. Silver turned from gazing out of the window, and came
forward expectantly, and the Kid told him to wait a minute and not be so
impatience Then he climbed upon a box, got down a heavy canvas nose-bag
with leather bottom, and from a secret receptacle behind the oats box he
brought a paper bag of sugar and poured about a teacupful into the bag.
Daddy Chip had impressed upon him what would be the tragic consequences
if he fed oats to Silver five times a day. Silver would die, and it
would be the Kid that killed him. Daddy Chip had not said anything about
sugar being fatal, however, and the Countess could not always stand
guard over the sugar sack. So Silver had a sweet taste in his mouth
twelve hours of the twenty-four, and was getting a habit of licking his
lips reminiscently during the other twelve.

The Kid had watched the boys adjust nose bags ever since he could
toddle. He lugged it into the stall, set it artfully upon the floor and
let Silver thrust in his head to the eyes: then he pulled the strap over
Silver's neck and managed to buckle it very securely. He slapped the
sleek neck afterward as his Daddy Chip did, hugged it the way Doctor
Dell did, and stood back to watch Silver revel in the bag.

"'S good lickums?" he asked gravely, because he had once heard his
mother ask Silver that very question, in almost that very tone.

At that moment an uproar outside caught his youthful attention. He
l