that gulch. I knowed the place. It's just a pocket, and not very
deep; but the sides couldn't be clumb by a goat, let alone a hawse.

"So I turns my pony into that hole and I got my rope ready, and
says I to me: 'Tom Collins, you're going to either get an awful
fall, or you'll be the proudest man on the old Rose Ranch!'"

"And what happened?" asked Walter.

"Well, I dunno. Either I'd been seeing things, or else that blame
black outlaw is bad medicine. He seemed to e-vap-o-rate."

"Now, Tom!" admonished Rhoda.

"Honest to pickles, Miss Rhody! I wouldn't fool you 'bout a serious
matter. And this is it."

"You mean you lost the horse?" asked Nan.

"In a blind pocket. Yes, ma'am! Criminy! I couldn't believe it
myself. I says to me: 'Tom Collins! your cinches is slipped. That's
what is the matter.'

"But you know, Miss Rhody," he added to the ranchman's daughter,
"your pa don't allow nothing stronger than spring water on the
ranch. I was as sober as a Greaser judge trying his brother-in-law
for hawse stealin'. That's what!

"That old black capering Satan went flying up that gulch; and me, I
pulled my little roan in after him and got my rope coiled. I says