attention, he'll rear up on his fore-feet, and walk along that way for
half a mile. Not having any saddle, we'll have to slide over his neck,
unless I can brace me feet agin his ears, and ride along standing straight
up."

The constant expectation of being flung over the head of a horse is not
the most comforting sensation that one can have, and the lad clung fast to
his friend in front, determined not to go, unless in his company. Upon
reaching the top of the ridge, the horse was reined up for a few minutes,
as Mickey, like the mariner at sea, was desirous of taking an observation,
so as to prevent himself going astray.

"Can you remember how you were placed?" asked the lad, after he had spent
several minutes in the survey; "that is, do you know which way to go for
the horse you left eating grass?"

"I was a little puzzled at first, as me father obsarved to the
school-teacher when he said I had been a good boy, but I see how it is
now. It must have been that I got a little turned round when I was down in
the basemint of these mountains, but I see how it is now. Right yonder,"
he added, pointing toward the Northwest, "is where I left my hoss, and
there is where I hope I'll find him again."

"Is the road so that we can ride the mustang all the way there, or must we
walk?"

"I remember I come right along some kind of a path, made by animals, after
leaving the beast. I s'pose it's the route taken by the crathurs in going
to the water, for there's a splendid spring right there, and the path that
I was just tilling you 'bout leads straight to it."