we came down the steep
track a dog came up snuffing and searching about the grass and stones as
if he'd lost something. It was Crib.

'Now we're getting home, Jim,' says Starlight. 'It's quite a treat to
see the old scamp again. Well, old man,' he says to the dog, 'how's all
getting on at the Hollow?' The dog came right up to Rainbow and rubbed
against his fetlock, and jumped up two or three times to see if he could
touch his rider. He was almost going to bark, he seemed that glad to see
him and us.

Dad was sitting on a log by the hut smoking, just the same as he was
before he left us last time. He was holding two fresh horses, and we
were not sorry to see them. Horses are horses, and there wasn't much
left in our two. We must have ridden a good eighty miles that night, and
it was as bad as a hundred by daylight.

Father came a step towards us as we jumped off. By George, I was that
stiff with the long ride and the cold that I nearly fell down. He'd got
a bit of a fire, so we lit our pipes and had a comfortable smoke.

'Well, Dick, you're back agin, I see,' he says, pretty pleasant for him.
'Glad to see you, Captain, once more. It's been lonesome work--nobody
but me and Jim and Warrigal, that's like a bear with a sore head half
his time. I'd a mind to roll into him once or twice, and I should too
only for his being your property like.'

'Thank you, Ben, I'll knock his head off myself as soon as we get
settled a bit. Warrigal's not a bad boy, but a good deal like a Rocky
Mountain mule; he's no good unless he's knocked down about once a month
or so, only he doesn't like any one but me to do it.'

'You'll see him about a mile on,' says father. 'He told me he'd be
behind the big rock where the tree grows--on the left of the road. He
said he'd get you a fresh horse, so as he could take Rainbow back to the
Hollow the long way round.'

Sure enough after we'd just got well on the road again Warrigal comes
quietly out from behind a big granite boulder and shows himself. He was
riding Bilbah, and leading a well-bred, good-looking chestnut. He was
one of the young ones out of the Hollow. He'd broken him and got him
quiet. I remembered when I was there first spotting him as a yearling. I
knew the blaze down his face and his three white legs.

Warrigal jumps off Bilbah and throws down the bridle. Then he leads the
chestnut up to where Starlight was standing smoking, and throws himself
down at his feet, bursting out crying