sleepers and day coaches, filled with people,
and to wonder where they could all be going, and speculate as to what
might be happening on the other side of those moving windows. Sometimes
of late the longing to know more of the outside world, and to follow
those ever moving cars, had become almost irresistible.

"If I could only take one real journey I believe I should be happy
forever," she would say to herself, and the hope of going to school at
Albuquerque, two hundred miles away, had filled her with a wild kind of
joy that was not unmixed with fear. But now that hope had been crushed,
for the present at least, and Marjorie, who was a sensible little soul,
had decided that it might be wiser to avoid watching the trains go by
just now. For a week she had kept away from the line, at the hours when
trains were likely to pass, but this afternoon she felt more cheerful.
The little talk with her aunt had done her good, and she resolved to
take Aunt Jessie's advice, and try to make the best of things. So when
the pony manifested a desire to take the familiar turning, she let him
have his way, and trotted on quite cheerfully toward the railroad.

"I'm afraid we're too late to-day, Roland," she remarked aloud, as the
pony plodded on bravely through the dust and heat. "I didn't hear the
whistle, but I'm sure the East Bound must have passed, and the West
Bound went through at two o'clock."

Having very few people to talk to, Marjorie had formed the habit of
talking to her live pets, of which Roland was her favorite. Her father
had given him to her when he was only a month old, and she had trained
him herself, as soon as he was old enough to bear the saddle, to say
nothing of the many romps the two had enjoyed together in the days of
his colthood. It seemed to her sometimes as if Roland must really
understand some of the things she told him, and now, at her remark about
the train, he slackened his pace to a leisurely trot, as if under the
impression that there was no use in hurrying.

"It is hot, isn't it, Roland?" said Marjorie, sympathetically. "You and
I will be glad when winter comes, and we can have some fine gallops. I
thought I might be going away to leave you this winter, but I'm not."

Roland pricked up his ears, and quickened his pace.

"What is it, Roland?" Marjorie inquired in surprise. "Oh, I see, it's
Jose on his black bronco."

Her face brightened, and she waved her hand in friendly welcome to the
approachi