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Show S&SasJJ J W.N.U, FEATURES' - THE STOIIY THUS FAB: In a cold rainstorm, Flicka'i colt, long overdue, Is born. Ken McLaughlin, Fllcka's 12-year-old owner, finds ber In a gulch. With the assistance of his brother Howard be brings the mare and colt to the stables. To Ken's astonishment, the foal Is white. It it evidently a throwback to the Albino, a wild white stallion that Is Fllcka's rrandslrc. This horse bad stolen Gypsy from the Goose Bar ranch, the big horse farm owned byKen's father In the Wyoming Wyo-ming mountains. Her colts, while splendid splen-did physically, were all unmanageable. Ken Is worried when he realizes that the Albino's characteristics have cropped out In his colt. He waits for a favorable time to announce his big news. CHAPTER III But the foal! That all-conquering prepotency Rob McLaughlin had spoken of! After all the trouble Rob had taken to rid his stock of the hated blood of the Albino, here It was cropping out again. This foal fas unlike its dam, unlike its sire, unlike any horse on the Goose Bar ranch. It resembled only one the Albino. It was almost like having the Albino right there in the stall! Was the power and ferocity of the great outlaw enclosed within that mottled baby hide of pink and white? This thought made shivers go through Ken. . Flicka had finished her mash. Ken lifted the bucket down and went to the door of the barn. He swung the top half open and looked out. It had stopped snowing. The wind had reversed re-versed itself and had blown the storm back into the east whence it had come. There was a riot of scudding scud-ding clouds in the sky with big stars close and bright, going in and out between them. It was much warmer. Ken folded his arms on the bottom half of the Dutch door and leaned there thinking, There were still other shadow-shapes shadow-shapes woven into the aura that encircled en-circled the foal like the predictions of a fortune-teller. That word Rob McLaughlin had dropped so casually into Ken's thought stream that day race horse Race horse. It could not, of course, be Flicka, owing to the thickened tendon which was the result re-sult of her infection. But why not a colt of Flicka's? With a sweet and tractable mother to teach him manners, man-ners, with the power and speed which came down to every one of the Albino's line why not? It had been Nell who had first made this suggestion. sug-gestion. Since then it had not been out of Ken's mind. Ken turned from the barn door and ran his hand down that right hind leg of Flicka's. It was his fault that thickened tendon because be-cause he had made them catch her for him. "But you're not sorry, are you, Flicka?" he whispered, going to her head, "because now you've got me " I-Ier face, leaning against him, was very still and contented. Ken took the lantern, gave one last look backward, and then left the barn, closing the door tightly behind him. He ran down through the gorge. In front of the rambling stone ranch house were several acres of lawn, called by his mother, the Green, after the neat little village Greens of New England where she had spent her childhood. It was covered with a thin sheet of snow. Ken ran across it to the house, and, in the warm kitchen, took off his slicker and sou'wester and drank the hot chocolate Howard had made. While they sat drinking, the two boys engaged in one of the wrangling, wran-gling, incomprehensible and wholly oblique discussions which make adult listeners conclude that the constitution con-stitution of boys' minds, and their language, have nothing to do with reason, logic or natural facts. "Promise!". "Let go of me!" "But he's mine." "My tongue's not yours." "Prom " Ken' voice rose. "Sh sh sh " warned Howard. But Ken was conscious of being in the right. If their father heard the noise and discovered it was because be-cause Howard wouldn't promise not to tell about Ken's colt before he had a chance to, Howard would get it in the neck. "Promise. Promise! PROMISE!" "All right. I promise. Get off my back." Bound for the stables and the colt, they paused behind the house at the sight of two strange cars. Visitors. Visitors brought home to the ranch from the dinner party last night. They recognized the cars. The blue one belonged to Colonel Morton Harris, Har-ris, an old classmate of their father's at West Point, now Colonel of Artillery at Fort Francis Warren. War-ren. The gray one belonged to Charles Sargent, mfllionaire horse-breeder, horse-breeder, owner of the famous racing rac-ing stud, Appalachian. Sargent had his home ranch not twenty-five miles from the Goose Bar. "Charley Sargent and Mort Harris," Har-ris," said Howard airily. "That's keen, No church today." But Ken stood looking at the cars and thinking. Charley Sargent, tall and thin as a beanpole in his narrow Cheyenne pants always kidding ar.d clowning his long brown face under the widebrimmed western hat looking as Gary Cooper's might when he got older it was always fun when Charley Sargent came to visit, and he might talk about bis race horses. Ken's heart felt a little flutter of excitement. He wanted to know all he could find out about race horses. And Appalachian, the Big black racing stud he "Come on!" said Howard, heading for the barn. Ken walked slowly after him, wondering won-dering If the presence of visitors would interfere with his own surprise. sur-prise. Should he tell them at breakfast? break-fast? It had to be arranged so that the impression was favorable. They had to be glad and proud that it was white, as he was himself. That wasn't all. He had really to act so that no one, not even his father, would suspect that he was hiding anything. That was going to be hard. It was hard enough to keep any sort of secret harder still if you felt the least bit guilty about it When they reached the corral they saw that Flicka and the colt were both out, enjoying the early morning morn-ing sunshine. Gus and Tim were watching, astonished and amused. Ken rushed at Gus and grabbed him. "Don't tell anyone, Gus they "Would it cost much, Dad?" don't know yet. I want to s'prise 'em promise " "Yu cud knock me over with a feather, Kennie," said the old Swede, with his slow smile. "But white horses is gude luck, they say." "Never seen no such colt on this ranch before," added Tim. "What'll the Captain say?" "Don't tell him until I have a chance to," insisted Ken. "Promise, will you?" "Sure. You can tell 'em, Kennie," said Gus. "She's your mare, and your colt too. I guess." Ken opened the barn door and called Flicka in. The colt did not follow but stood blinking in the sunshine. sun-shine. Gus and Tim shooed it gently in. Ken put them both in the farthest far-thest stall and he and Howard stood for a while watching them. But Ken had important business on his mind, and presently ran down 'to the house and found that his mother was making breakfast and his father upstairs shaving. Ken leaned against the bathroom door and called gently, "Dad!" "Hullo there!" "Say, dad would you tell me something?" "Depends." "Well if you had money enough, what kind of fences would you have on the ranch?" "Well if I had money enough, I'd tear out every foot of barbed wire and put in wooden fences. Good solid posts about ten feet apart and four feet high. Even one line of rails on top of that would keep horses in that is, if it was solid enough so they couldn't rub them down with their fannies." "Would it cost much, dad?" "You can get the poles for nothing noth-ing up in the Government Reserve, but the cutting and hauling would cost money that's work. I wouldn't have time to do it myself." "Even If it costs lots of money, dad, it wouldn't matter." Rob's answer was smothered In the sounds that go with shaving, and suddenly he began his favorite shaving shav-ing song. Suddenly the door burst open and he strode out in riding breeches, boots, singlet, and a very gay good humor. His black hair was rough, his eyes very blue, and all his big white teeth showing. He almost rode over Ken and the boy felt overpowered over-powered by the impact of his father's personality. With the door closed between them, it had been less potent "I'll be waiting for you a-hat the kitchen door!" roared Rob, stamp-ing stamp-ing down the hall toward his room. He stopped at the head of the stairs, looked over and shouted, "Say, you fellows! Mort I Charley! Are you still asleep? Flapjacks comln' up!" There was an answering shout from the terrace at the front of the house, "We're way ahead of youl" and Rob hurried into his room to finish dressing. Outside, Nell and her two guests were being entertained, as was usual at the Goose Bar ranch, by the antics of assorted : animals. Chaps, the black cocker, and Kim, the collie, were chasing each other on the Green as if nothing were needed for exuberant happiness but to have been shut up for a night and then let out again.' All traces of snow had disappeared. disap-peared. There was intense sunlight breaking everywhere into the colors of the prism. There was a boisterous boister-ous wind bending the pines and making Nell's blue linen dress flut-ter. flut-ter. "What do you think of him?" she called to Colonel Harris, who stood near the fountain inspecting Rob's work team. They were huge brown brutes. "That one you're looking at is Big Joe," she added, "the pride of Rob's heart." "I should say' said the Colonel In his cultured, precise manner, taking tak-ing off his glasses and polishing them, "that he is a pure-bred Percheron, sixteen hands high, and weighs thirteen hundred pounds." "Just about right," said Nell, picking up her cat, Pauly, who was begging beside her. Pauly, a sinuous, sinu-ous, tortoiseshell angora with long topaz eyes and a little siren face, slipped one arm around Nell's neck, hung on, and tried to lick her mouth-Nell mouth-Nell tapped the tiny coral sickle-shaped sickle-shaped tongue and laughed. Charley Sargent's lanky form hovered over her. "You're lookin mighty pretty this mornin' how do you get those pink cheeks?" "You forget I've been slaving over the kitchen stove getting breakfast for let's see five male men" She buried her face in Pauly's soft brown fur. Charley Sargent always embarrassed her with his flattering eyes and flirty ways. He made her feel about eighteen. "Isn't this a day!" she exclaimed. "Who could believe it was snowing snow-ing last night! That's Wyoming for you!" She turned her face up to the sky. There were magpies and plover and chicken hawks gliding on steeply tilted wings against the blue, and now and then, when the wind veered, came a breath of snow from the Neversummer Range In the south. "Last night," said Charley, still hovering, "was a mighty nice party. But I'm afraid to face Rob. He bawled me out for dancin' with you so much." "This other one," called Colonel Harris, "is not pure-bred, is he?" "No," said Nell, running down the steps to join him. "That's old Tommy. Tom-my. He's our bronco-buster. Whenever When-ever Rob has a young horse he wants to take the ginger out of, he harnesses him up with Tommy." While she chattered she was remembering re-membering how furious Rob had been last night when Charley Sargent Sar-gent had waltzed with her and spun her around and around so fast that her long blue dress had stood out like the skirt of a whirling dervish. All the same it was fun. Breakfast was noisy. There were flapjacks, thin and brown and light with slightly crisp edges. Piles of them, piping hot. A bowl of brown sugar was on the table and a jug of maple syrup. With her flapjacks, Nell liked marmalade, melted and thinned and hot. "By Jiminy, I'll try that!" ex-claimed ex-claimed Charley, taking the pitcher. All the time, the thought of his colt was never out of Ken's mind. Even while he was watching and listening to the others, he was. trying to figure out just how he would tell it. The build-up he had attempted with his father hadn't come to much. Ken wanted, too, to talk to his mother about the things she would like to .buy when his colt was winning money on the race tracks. Dresses and velvet things with fur like the General's wife wore, so that they would all fall in love with the colt the moment they saw it because of all it was going to do for them. But as the hilarious breakfast progressed pro-gressed through grapefruit and flapjacks flap-jacks and sausages and pots of coffee cof-fee with thick yellow Guernsey cream, and Rob got up again and again to go to the kitchen, and Howard How-ard carried piles of plates In and out, Ken became convinced that this wasn't the time to tell it. They wouldn't pay attention would just say, "Oh, a new colt? Flicka has foaled at last? Fine pass the syrup, syr-up, will you?". After all, there were so many colts born on the Goose Bar ranch. A car drove up and stopped behind be-hind the house. As Rob returned from the kitchen. Colonel Harris said, "That's probably the sergeant and orderly with my mare." "What for?" asked Nell. Roto explained. "Mort wants to have his saddle mare bred by Banner, Ban-ner, so I told him to send her up today." "It's late for breeding, Isn't it?" "Yes," said Harris, "it Is. I thought she was bred, but she isn't after all, so we're going to try again." "Why don't you have her bred by a real 6tvtd!" said Charley. "You don't happen to be ignorant of the fact that my Appalachian Is the finest racra' stud in horse history, do you" (TO DE CONTINUED) |