that. He can set down and rest if he wants to. Git along, old
soap-foot," he cried--"soap-foot" possibly because Rowdy occasionally
slipped. His antique legs didn't always do just what he wanted them to
do.

Topping the mesa edge, Pete saw the distant green that fringed the
Concho home-ranch, topped by a curl of smoke that drifted lazily across
the gold of the morning. Without urging, Rowdy broke into a stiff
trot, that sounded Pete's inmost depths, despite his natural good seat
in the saddle. "Quit it!" cried Pete presently. "You'll be goin' on
crutches afore night if you keep that up.--And so'll I," he added.
Rowdy immediately stopped and turned his mournful eye on Pete.

If the trot had been the rhythmic _one, two, three, four_, Pete could
have ridden and rolled cigarettes without spilling a flake of tobacco;
but the trot was a sort of _one, two--almost three_, then, whump!
_three_ and a quick _four_, and so on, a decidedly irregular meter in
Pete's lyrical journey toward new fields and fairer fortune. "I'll
sure make Andy sit up!" he declared as the Concho buildings loomed
beneath the cool, dark-green outline of the trees. He dismounted to
open and close a gate. A half-mile farther he again dismounted to open
and close another gate. From there on was a straightaway road to the
ranch-buildings. Pete gathered himself together, pushed his hat down
firmly--it was new and stiff--and put Rowdy to a high lope. This was
something like it! Possibly Rowdy anticipated a good rest, and hay.
In any event, he did his best, rounding into the yard and up to the
house like a true cow-pony. All would have been well, as Pete realized
later, had it not been for the pup. The pup saw in Rowdy a new
playfellow, and charged from the door-step just as that good steed was
mentally preparing to come to a stop. The pup was not mentally