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Show THK STOKY SO FA II: TcnroM Ktn Mi'ljuishlln enn rlilft any horso on his family's Wyoming ranch, but hs wants a colt of his own. Ills father, a redrnl rny oflU'iT, ronises to f lv him one unlit his school sr:tlos Improve and ho learns to Cakn responsibility. Ken's mother trios to protect him from tho stern discipline, of his f:ther end the youthful bullying of his oliler brother, Howard, who always manages to do things right. Captain Mclaughlin has received a letter from Ken's school ad-riling ad-riling him that Ken has not been promoted. pro-moted. So, white tho others prepare to round up the mares and colts, Ken has to stay In the bouse and study. Now continue with the story. Ho tumlril for his pud, opened nil tho drawers, iitui found It. Then he hiui Nell coining up tho stairs, mul she opened his door. She had some fresh bureau scarves over her arm, and ranio In briskly nnd went to his chiffonier to chaiuio tho scarf. "I was thinking. Ken, It would be a good Idea If you spent your study hour on that composition." "The composition?" "Yes, tho one you didn't write. If you write It nicely we could send it to Mr. Gibson and tell him how It was you enmo not to write anything any-thing that you were thinking about It and he might let you have some credit for It." "The one about the Albino," said Ken, and his eyes went thoughtfully to the window. "How would I begin be-gin It?" "Have you got paper there?" "Yes." "Well, just pretend you're telling someone about it someone who doesn't know. Me, for Instance. Perhaps Per-haps I've forgotten. Who was the Albino, anyway?" Ken grinned, and said, "A big white stallion Just a bronc who came over the border from Montana when they had a drouth there. Dad called him big ugly devil but a lotta horse " "That's fine," encouraged Nell. "And what did he do?" Ken sighed deeply, and wrote, "The Story of Gypsy," carefully at the top of the paper. Ken tore down the road. He'd take the short cut They'd been gone almost an hour and they were on horseback. He'd meet them tho study all tho unpleasant things were behind him. Ilo woke wilh a jerk, coming up from such a deep place that it Bcetned he must have slept for hours. Ilo was bewildered nnd snt up, trying to gather his wlls. Then he remembered and scrambled to his feet would he bo too late? they might have passed while he was asleep ho ran out from behind the bush head on Into the bunch. The mares were coming up from the meadow, almost noiselessly on the grass, McLaughlin In the rear, and Banner offside In tho middle. They were walking ai quietly ai the cows coming in for milking. In the lead was a powerful, long-legged long-legged mare with a shiny black coat She carried her nose In the air, her wild, staring eyes ringed with white. Rocket, the loco mare, daughter of the Albino. As Ken shot out from behind the bush, almost colliding with her, she snorted In terror and went straight up on her hind legs. For a moment Ken was under the dangling black hoofs of her forelegs fore-legs and smelled the heat of her body, then she twisted to one side, made a great leap and shot away, and It seemed to Ken that it was a hundred horses that leaped and scattered after her, Instead of Just twenty. Ken ran to a pile of rocks and scrambled to the top so he could see all that happened. Rocket had gone off at an angle to the line of march and was on a dead run, stretched out like a race horse, with the whole bunch after her. She was heading for the Rock Slide, a place where the grazing land broke down to the lower levels of the next pasture over a long curving curv-ing hill of sheer rock. To go down it on foot, he and Howard had to sit and slide. No horse, not even the most sure-footed, could negotiate negoti-ate that drop. If she went over she'd go head over heels, Bhe'd roll and bounce to the bottom, and all the others too, if they followed her, the whole band of mares and colts pitching pitch-ing down, somersaulting, rolling crashing "Whoa there whoa whoa " McLaughlin's voice rang out on a note of desperation. He was galloping gallop-ing as fast as he could to head off Rocket but she had a long lead and Shorty was slow. Then Ken saw the big stallion. Banner, shoot out of the crush. His bright chestnut coat was like flame In the sunlight. His feet thundered. "Oh, go it Banner go it!" shouted shout-ed Ken in an agony, dancing up and down on his rock. The two horses were running at an angle to each other. Banner gaining. gain-ing. They converged near the Rock Slide. Banner's head was suddenly right over Rocket's, his golden mane mingled with her black mane, his mouth open and his big teeth bared. Suddenly his jaws snapped and Rocket gave a furious squeal and stopped with a jar. Banner whirled and lashed and his heels struck her side with a ringing smack. The other oth-er mares telescoped up against CHAPTER II When Ken left the kitchen the alarm clock on the wall shelf beside the spice closet pointed to twenty minutes to nine. He wondered if he should time himself right from then or from the moment he went Into his room, or from when he set his books on the table. This was a very Important point but as he could not decide, he went upstairs as slowly as he could, just In case It was all part of the hour. He paused on the landing In front of the picture of the duck. If he stood there looking at the duck picture pic-ture he could get into another world. He knew how to do it. To get into another world you had to make yourself your-self the same size, in your mind. But he felt misgivings, standing there. His mother would hear, from the kitchen, that he hadn't gone all the way upstairs. He went on up, down the hall, into his room, and noisily closed the door. - Possibly she would time htm too. He stood a few moments looking around. He and Howard each had a small room to himself. Ken loved his room. The walls were white-washed, and there was a big window opening out front over the terrace and the Green. He could see everything from It Sunshine poured in. Best of all, Ken loved his little walnut bed, because that was really home. It wasn't very tidy. He and Howard How-ard had to make their own beds, and he had made his in a hurry, before he went out riding. Now would be a good time to straighten It up. That was a good dutiful deed about as good as studying it probably could be counted in the hour. The quilt, which was light green with sprigs of pink and blue flowers on It, was crooked and humped over the bedclothes underneath. under-neath. He threw it back, then paused, his eyes on the wall at the head of the bed. There were these pictures one on each side about eight inches square, with a Sat wooden frame an inch wide. And inside the frame He dropped the quilt moved up to one picture and stood minutely examining It What peoplel Peasant Peas-ant people, his mother had told him, probably Swiss. Down at the end of his room was the strangest picture of all. 1IPT "m Iff 1 Kg Ken went to look at it There was a verse written in the corner which he knew by heart "Intreat me not to leave thee, Nor to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest I will go, And where ' thou lodgest I will lodge." It was a picture of a desert land-And land-And a man stood as if waiting to go, looking at the maiden for whom he was waiting. But she had run back to throw her arms around a woman, and there they stood, arms about each other. And the verse m the corner was what she was saying. They were dressed in long, draped, brightly colored shawls. "Intreat me " He Jumped and ran back to the bed when he heard quick steps across the kitchen floor below. Outside the kitchen door his mother's voice called, "Here, Kim Here, Chaps" This time he really finished the bed and smoothed the quilt. It looked very nice. He stood regarding regard-ing it thinking that now he must take down his books. Resolutely he picked out his arithmetic arith-metic book, sat down, opened it and began to think. Suddenly Ken heard the sound of horses coming near the house and started up so quickly that the leg of his chair tangled with the leg of the table and he went sprawling on ! the floor, then scrambled up and over to the window. Ken leaned out the window as far as he could to see the last of them as they went down the Green, just log-trotting, and disappeared around the end of the house "Ken!" Nell's voice came floating up from the open window below. "What are you doing?" He scurried back to the table and made it true before he answered, "I'm doing my arithmetic." "What was that crash?" "My chair fell over." "What made it fall over?" "It just fell over " Nothing more from NelL and Ken summoned all his energy and frowned at his open book. He must make a plan. He would do cancellation cancella-tion over. He liked cancellation. It was fun crossing out the figures above and below the line and turn-tng turn-tng everything Into nothing. She snorted in terror and went straight np on her hind legs. about halfway coming back maybe, and see the whole bunch moving. He'd find a good place and hide so his father wouldn't see him. He trotted along in the Irrigation ditch. It was dry because the water wa-ter hadn't been turned In yet This way he would avoid the road and the gates. Howard might be stationed sta-tioned at any one of the gates. He left the ditch and climbed up a hilL From here he could see Gus and Tim working in the ditch In the Crooked Meadow and could hear their voices. Tim was swinging a pick; the sound of the blow reached him after he saw the pick land. And a mile or more away he could see Castle Rock, the great beetling rock, jutting up seventy feet high, with peaks and parapets and turrets shaped like a castle. It overhung the aspen grove at the far end of the meadow. That was where they were, down there near the rock. His father was rounding up the mares with their foals, getting them out of the woods, bringing them back through the meadow slowly. He never ran them. Ken ran down the hill and headed for the big rock. He ran as far as he could and then stopped to get his wind again and make a calculation. calcula-tion. From where he was now, on the grazing land which sloped down to the barbed wire fence around the meadow, he could see the wide gate open and fastened back. That was so the mares could come through up to where he was. There was a sort of road here, and the mares would follow it naturally and stay right on it If he could hide somewhere near here, where he could keep his eye on the gate, he'd see them pass quite close. He looked about for shelter. Here and there was a jagged outcropping of the pink granite which underlay the soil, here and there a small clump of wild currant bushes. He drew back behind the bush and lay down and suddenly felt very tired and very happy. The report card and the saddle blanket and them. Then Banner was everywhere at once, biting, driving, wheeling and kicking the mares back. Not one single mare lost not a colt hurt or crushed Rocket herself, her-self, panting and foam flecked, walking walk-ing meekly back towards the road Ken's terror was now for himself. him-self. If his father should see him! He might not have. Might have thought it was something else that scared them, a coyote, or perhaps just Rocket's craziness. He slid down the rock and sat hunched up at the base of It He was fairly well hidden there, rocks and currant bushes all around him. He could hear the pounding of the horses' hoofs going farther away and he began to breathe more easily. easi-ly. Then a shadow fell on him and he looked up and saw his father sitting there on Shorty. After one look into the blazing eyes under the down-drawn brim oi the Stetson hat Ken dropped his head and sat silent. "I I just came to see the horses," he muttered at last. McLaughlin said nothing. Ken looked up again and the look on his father's face made him burn all over. He cried out sharply, "I didn't mean to do it, Dad I didn't mean to scare them " He wanted to go on and explain that he had fallen asleep and then run out to see if they had gone and Rocket was right there. But there wasn't time. Without a word of answer or blame, McLaughlin wheeled Shorty and went cantering away after the mares. Ken felt as If he had been put out of the ranch, out of all the concerns con-cerns that Howard was in on. And out of his father's heart that was the worst What he was always hoping hop-ing for was to be friends with his father, and now this, so soon after getting home His despair made him feel weak. He put his head down on his drawn-up knees and bis hands were clenched tight After a while he slid down flat and slept again; a deep exhausted sleep this time that made up the hours he had lost riding so early that morning. morn-ing. (TO BE CONTINUED) |