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Show Lady was a big red roan with a black tail and mane. She moved quickly; her head had a proud, high carriage; her dark eyes were full and intelligent. Ken slid around her, close to her haunches, one hand on her tail, and then gave her a whack and said, "Get over!" The mare moved over with her quick strong step and Ken rubbed down her other side. He put on the saddle blanket, then the saddle, and cinched it as tight as he could, remembering re-membering the blanket he had lost; lastly the bridle she had finished plation just as he was. And at exactly ex-actly the moment when he had had enough, she knew it, and would move forward without the signal. Today she was excited by the color col-or and the electric quality of the air and the feeling of movement in the grass and the sky, and she kept asking for a free rein. When Ken gave it to her, she stretched out her nose and went up the steepest part of the Saddle Back at a gallop. Ken looked for the yearlings where they had been yesterday but there was no sign of them. He rode arnnnd fnr . an hfnir. thinking THE STORY SO FAR: Ten-year-old Ken McUushUn cn rk, any horse on his family's Wyoming ranch, but he nits' a colt ot his own. Ills father, a retired army ofllcer, refuses to give him ne until his school grades Improve and he learns to take responsibility. Ken's molbcr tries to protect him trom the ,lem dlsclpllno ot his falhcr and the vontMui bullying of his older brother, Howard, who always manages to do Uungs right. Nell convinces her hus-band hus-band that the colt may be lust what Ken needs, In spite of the fact that he has not been promoted. Days pass, and Ken ha! not chosen his colt. But he Is a croneed b5'- Now continue with the story. that Shorty would have taken him right to them, but Lady didn't have that much sense, she was just excited ex-cited and wanting to run in any direction. All the sunrise colors had gone now, and the torn shreds of clouds were purple and gray and stormy looking. Ken rode up to the highest peak of the Saddle Back so that he could look all around for dozens of miles; but the range was empty; not a head of stock anywhere. Still, he knew they could be bidden in the folds of the hills and never show an ear but which fold? Which hill? He rode on, and suddenly, coming com-ing around a curve, he saw Banner standing out in front of the brood mares, intent and alert, gathered for action. Ken had barely time to turn his head when he saw Rocket and a sorrel sor-rel filly cantering toward the bunch, and then he saw Banner trot out to her oats. He led her out of the corral and shut the gate. There was a rock there upon which he often stood to mount the tallest horses. He led Lady up to it. First he tried the cinch again. Loose! She always blew herself up when she was being saddled. That was what he had forgotten to do the other day with Cigarette. He took the cinch up three more holes, mounted, mount-ed, and moved off. The four broncs that Ross was breaking were grazing in the Stable Sta-ble Pasture close by the corrals, and when they saw him, they trotted over to him, and Ken drew rein and stood there, letting them come up and sniff and nicker at Lady; and she nickered back. When he went on they followed for a little while, and then turned back to the corrals waiting for their oats, he thought. Ross always gave each one a measure meas-ure of oats before he worked them. CHAPTER VI Ken wakened one morning in the dark and turned to face the window, win-dow, and when It showed faintly gray outside, he got up and stood watching the dawn brighten in the east. There wasn't enough light yet for him to see anything clearly. It seemed a world of near-darkness, in which vague outlines appeared and vanished, floating and shadowy. His thoughts were like that, too. He groped for familiar footing in his mind, but everything was changed. Something new had come into him so that he was different. Even Tim said that he had grown an inch since his father promised him the colt, and Howard treated him as if he was important. But something had gone out of him, too; and sometimes he wanted it so that he was in a meet them with lowered head and an expression of irresistible intention inten-tion in his whole body. Rocket and the young sorrel halted halt-ed together. Rocket whinnied. Banner Ban-ner screamed. His head snaked along the grass. He reached them and circled around them both. Rocket began to gallop away. Banner Ban-ner pursued, first on one side of her then on the other. The sorrel colt clung close to its mother's side, : -1.. Ckn rrrt in panic. But now he was outside. The door was shut. It was windy and dangerous dan-gerous outside The colt he began to dress hurriedly. Today or tomorrow to-morrow he must choose his colt He would ride up now onto the range and look at the yearlings again. It was still dark when he stole out ; the front door and felt the terrace r grass under his feet. No one had 1 heard him. That was good. He 1 didn't want Howard along. Going out in the early morning was almost like going into the underwater world, or the world of a picture, or - in a dream. Not quite so safe as j a dream because he did have to a watch his horse, or, if he was climbing climb-ing on Castle Rock, he had to be careful of his footing, but still nothing noth-ing like the ordinary world of the l, daytime. He walked softly across the Green to the Calf Pasture to get his horse. Ken had been a night wanderer ever since he had learned to walk alone and to climb over the edge of I hie r-T-ih Nell would wake, hearing wninnying uejvuuaij. one &u, Banner's way. He gave a vicious, snarling neigh, plunged at the little lit-tle one and bit it in the ribs. It screamed and fled, Banner pursuing. pursu-ing. Lady was taut and trembling with excitement, as Ken was himself. The brood mares, too, were motionless, motion-less, watching the chase. The filly showed Banner a clean pair of heels. How she could run! Rocket trotted nervously up and down near the brood mares. The filly made a big circle, with Banner Ban-ner thundering after her. She came A a sound in the hall or living room, j would find the baby's crib empty and go searching for him. diJ She'd find him somewhere in the & dark, crawling or standing unsteadily unsteadi-ly ly on the tail of his nightgown and would pick him up and carry him j back to bed. She tried tying the bottom of his rai nightgown in a knot with his feet Uf inside, but he merely became more Tjjj expert at balancing. Then she hob-j,i hob-j,i bled him with a soft diaper, but he fid- learned to swing both feet together P'J over the side of his crib, hang with little monkey hands, drop down, and shuffle instead of walk. When he was older, sometimes " he'd go outdoors in the night. Often Nell did that herself. Rest-fj Rest-fj less or unable to sleep, she would ' slip from her bed, tie a robe around her, take pillow and blanket and go I P down to her hammock, and lie with I her face to the sky. watching the rjaCK IO Uie Illdieo, auu a passed them Banner swerved and went for Rocket. The filly fled past Ken. He saw frightened eyes in a tangle of streaming hair and slim legs, and a pang went through him. For a fraction of a second she had looked at him, and it was like an appeal. He wheeled his mount and followed her, turning in the saddle to look back at Rocket. Rocket was cantering away again with Banner close beside her and before the curve of a hill shut them from view, Ken saw her come to a stop, and the great body of the stallion stal-lion rear over her. For a moment the two of them, twisted into one shape, were sculptured against the stormy sky. When Ken turned and looked again for the filly she was nowhere in sight. He pulled Lady up short. The range was empty, with no movement but the clouds and the grass, and no sound but the panting pant-ing of the mare he rode and the thud of his own heart beating. "Might's well keep him going and git it outen his system." Their names were Gangway, Don, Rumba and Blazes. Sometimes, Ken thought, as he cantered toward the County Road gate, the names his mother gave the colts in their first summer didn't stick because the colts changed so. There had been Irish Elegance, so smooth and classy-looking the first summer that Nell said she was naming nam-ing him after a beautiful, copper-colored California rose. But the sec- stars. I o bei Ken found Lady just inside the i!1 fence of the Calf Pasture, and when ! he held out his hand and spoke to trj her, she didn't move away but let hi him take hold of her halter and lead i"P!' her out. He had been riding Lady all week Jfl when he was exercising the geld- ings and looking for Rocket and in- ' specting the yearlings. He had gone HlA to look at the yearlings every day, and yesterday his mother had rid- den out with him. They hadn't been jJJ able to find them anywhere, until gjjl suddenly, from a high place, they Rocket's colt a yearling, a filly and his own. He hadn't had to choose one after all She had just come to him. His own because of that second's cry for help that had come from her eyes to his; his own because of her wild beauty and speed, his own because his heart burned within him at the sight and thought of her; his own because well, just his own. Then, from far ahead of him came an excited whinny another and an-v,o an-v,o The fillv appeared from no- ond summer he had turnea into little mick, so they dropped the Elegance Ele-gance and just call him Irish. Ross was having a tough time breaking Gangway, a big blood bay out of Taggert, the tallest and handsomest hand-somest of the four. Yesterday Ken and Howard had sat on the corral fence watching Ross working with him Gangway was bucking, and Ross had called to Howard to open the corral gate and let him out The horse bucked out the gate with h.m swung his quirt, and where, a tiny shape, running on a ridge in front of him, tail streaming against the dark tattered clouds, she plunged over the ridge, he heard more whinnies, he kicked Lady in the ribs and gave her her head, and in a few moments stood on the ridge, looking down, and saw the beautiful filly rejoining the band of yearlings, who welcomed her with excited chatterings as school-children welcome each other at reunion in the fall. Ken rode down the mountain in a daze of happiness. No dream he had ever had, no imagination of adventure or triumph could touch this moment. He felt as if he had burst out of his old self and was something entirely new and that spurred him, and Gangway sun-fished sun-fished and cork-screwed and jack-knifed- Ross sat with a little grin and his quirt going all the time, and when he came past Ken, ex-nloding ex-nloding in great grass-hopper leaps, he , .aid,- "Might's well keep him goin and git it outen his system. Wnen it was over and he had ridden rid-den Gangway back into the. corral and dismounted, Ross went over o the fence and stood hanging on to it vomiting. Ken had to dismount to open the e,te to the County Road. He was , ireful to hold the rein tight as he fed Lady through and closed the late behind him. He found another rock to mount by and started up the enririle Back. . . " neard the thunaer oi noois. :X"' "They sounded like a regiment," said Nell, telling about it at supper. "And we looked down and saw jtiod1 them, a stream of color flying down-j down-j the draw. It was beautiful to watch them! They shone in the sun sor- rel and black and bay and roan the u-a I flowing moveinent so gay, so free, apttf ' so frolicsome!" i7 And then they had ridden down to the yearlings and dismounted jssfj amongst them, and Nell exclaimed Jj upon the way their first year of life ' changed their appearance dark chestnuts turned to sorrels, a pink rn 1 roan changed to a blue, blacks light-1 light-1 ened to brown, odd spots and mark-J? mark-J? ings vanished completely; and con-gfJ con-gfJ , formation altered almost beyond Lin" I recognition. the world had Durst into someuims new too. So this was it this was what being alive meant Oh, my filly, fil-ly, my filly. mv beautiful "For once you're back to breakfast break-fast on time," said Rob, as Ken took his seat at the table. Ever since she had read in the Government bulletins that all prize stock was raised on elaborate formulas for-mulas of mixed grains-or ground oats and had noticed that the dogs when they were hungry, squirmec through the wire fence into th calves' corral and ate the grour.c oats trom the feed boxes, oalmei, had a place on her breakfast tabic (TO HE COAT.(. ID) All the clouds had turned pink, and behind them the sky was a faraway, far-away, fiery blue. The higher he climbed the wider the sky was. and the farther stretched the fleet of tattered clouds. They were getting more color every ev-ery minute, some of them blazed All the stars had dis-"reared dis-"reared except one. which shone Ken two clouds, bright gold. Lady wanted her head. xhel-e was a strong current of sympathy between the boy and the m" 'e When he wanted to stop and Lnk around she understood perfect- ; Id with ears pricked and head turning, absorbed in contem- ' "They look stunning," she tola jfi Rob. "Smooth and sleek and glossy, their little hides so full and taut they look as if they would burst." Ken himself had been dazed by the beauty of them. The rich feel-!'. feel-!'. ing-one of them his own. but i,;i ' which? He wanted them all, and until he chose, in a way, they were all his. I t,ip . :en led Lady up the little path V';' through the Gorge, into the corrals, r.1. nrJ then into the dark stable, put ?$y M catch on her halter, poured a fitf'5' measure of oats in the feed box in imangcr before her, and began tiUm to gf -oom her. Dad said use saddles nlfcj -cajn't see why better do it any- I I ) |