“Here, Rev. Here, Good Boy! Oats—smell ’em!”

Pemrose, wild with the welcome of the mountains and the triumph of that late long-distance talk with her father—to say nothing of a step, at any rate, towards a secret code for Camp Fire Girls—was dancing all over the Long Pasture.

Temptingly in her hand was the flat tin, half full of oats, which she had taken from a bin in the gray shed at a western corner of the mile-long pasture. An outpost of the farm buildings, paddocks and horse-boxes, more than a mile below, was that weather beaten shed; in it tools were kept and farm implements used in the grain raising for horses, the bean and corn growing, upon the lower sidehill, the outskirts of the well-stocked horse-farm in the rich, green bottom-lands!

“Oats! Oats! Smell them—Boy! Maybe there’s a lump of sugar somewhere, too! Two lumps—if you’re very good!”

She patted the breast pocket of her linen riding habit, holding the pan of grain aslant.

Revelation approached warily, step by step, his beautiful bay neck outstretched, his long face eager—dark eyelids blinking.

Within a dozen feet of the temptress he halted, suspicious of the hand behind her back, pushed his nose out, the neck quite level, his breath coming in a white, investigating cloud.

Suddenly he tossed his head with the bright, chestnut mane, those long, silky eyelashes winking mischievously, wheeled and darted off, with a teasing snort which plainly said:

“Not this morning—thank you! I’d rather race automobiles along by the fence.”

“He senses that I have a halter with me,” murmured the radiant girl, keeping the right hand still out of sight and renewing honeyed negotiations with her left, displaying the oats, golden in the flash of mountain sunlight, spilling a little of it into her shoes, while the horse circled round her in wide rings, took a notion to walk slowly towards her—then, at ten feet, again, darted away.

“You’re a rogue, Revelation. But you’re not an outlaw—like Cartoon. But I suppose he isn’t really a bad horse—or he wouldn’t be mingling with human beings, up here in the Long Pasture—only Roman-nosed and stubborn.”

Pem’s glance roved now to a distant tall horse, a dark bay, with a long neck sawing restlessly in the sunlight, a sharp sickle face, almost a hatchet face, slanted sidelong, who hovered nervously upon the outskirts of the parleying group of girls and horses. With gay satisfaction, her eye came back to Revelation.

A Morgan bay, fifteen hands high, with a foxy coat of satin, in every lithe movement the thoroughbred, shy, sensitive, fast,—but kindly, good-natured, too.

She wheedled with the amber oats again, spattering it from the tilted tin upon the laughing air, while her horse, in ever narrowing circles, sampled the scent, nose away out, velvet nostrils quivering into mischievous smiles—at the slightest movement to catch him, he was off again, heels flinging.

“You’re as naughty as can be, this morning, Boy. You’ve raced autos too much—while we were handling the ‘crutch.’” The girl’s eyes danced, blue as the sky-ways above her. “Can’t you take a lesson from your mother, Revel? But I suppose you’re just a Revelation of what’s hidden in her—only motherhood, mincing motherhood, keeps it down,” she laughed to herself, turning to glance over the mountain pasture—a third of a mile in width.

Everywhere the same catch-as-can game was going on, with oats and halter, everywhere challenge and parley, at the sunny end of the range that is, at which the horses had congregated!

Harmony, Fox, Galatea, old King, full of pasture play and human curiosity, running along by the fence, in turn, to ogle a tempting girl, with, somewhere, a halter concealed about her, then archly taking the “fling-strings”, putting fifty or a hundred yards between them and a morning ride, kicking blissfully, as they ran!

And the colts, the enchanting colts, from the fluffy infant, with hair inches long, running beside or under its mother, to the shaggy gawk, with big, watery blue eyes, who thought he could kick the sky.

“They’re all—all full of mischief this morning,” whispered Pemrose between her teeth. “Una is the only one who has a ‘soft snap.’ Revel stands still to be caught. And Unie—‘Jack’—scores in another way, too, she owns her horse. Oh! what would I not give to call you mine, Revelation—teasing imp though you are.” Pem’s knuckles pressed her lips, to hold in the longing. “Ah, here comes the farmer—Menzies, who has charge of the horse-farm—and his little son, Donnie, Menzies to give us lessons in riding and jumping—Donnie, with a tan puppy under his arm! What! Revel—Donnie! Curls—what!”

Pemrose’s eyes were wide and round as the colts’ now—limpid, shining. They were fixed upon a group, thirty yards away, where of all the girls—with some experience in horseback riding before—who were to learn this summer to catch and bridle their own mounts, Una was the only one whose apple fell easily into her mouth. The only one who did not have to run or pant—or spill oats into her shoes!

Except on rare occasions Revel, beguiled by a lump of sugar, would stand still, gentle image of motherhood, to have the halter thrown over her short, fair head by her girl rider.

A beautiful little horse she was, with her coat of cinnamon silk, her form more chunky than that of her six-year-old son, Revelation—neck thicker, shoulder heavier.

And now—now, to the group, two figures were added: Menzies, the horse-breeder, and his tiny son, not yet four, whose flaxen curls, in this out-of-the way region, were, like the colts’ fluff, still unshorn.

Una had exhausted her bribe of sugar—was waiting for the other girls to catch their horses. But Revel knew where more was to be found, Donald had some, generally, in the pocket of his little blouse for her. But Donnie was, at present, taken up with displaying the pup under his arm. And Revel found other amusement.

Stealing up behind the child, until her soft mother breath was on his cheek, gently she nibbled at his curls, taking them one by one into her “nuzzling” mouth, letting them stray through it—heaven’s hay.

Other horses, Harmony, Fox—Flying Fox—were curious about those flaxen curls, too, had come near enough to smell of them; Revel alone fondled them in her mouth.

“What a—picture!” breathed Pemrose. “If Unie has one friend that she loves more than me, it’s Revel—and on her back she is seldom afraid. Oh-h! this is a won-der-ful morning. It puts even radio in the background.”

She was out of breath and she stood still, leaning against a side fence watching that sunlit group, mother-horse, child, newborn dog—even the wonder of riding the air with a whisper on the back of a carrier-wave paling beside a rare moment in earth’s picture gallery.

All the Long Pasture was a picture gallery that morning, dramatic representations of girlish life and pluck, vivid horseplay.

Presently, while Donnie, resenting the babying, snatched his head away and fed Revel with a lump of sugar, instead, from his tiny breast pocket, Pemrose resumed her game of catch.

This time Revelation, being a good horse if gay, allowed himself to be coaxed. He lessened the ten-foot barrier to five, sniffing at the dribbing oats. In a trice the girl had him by the forelock. With her left hand on his long head she was pressing that down until her foot was on his neck—otherwise her elbow—while with her right hand feeding him the oats.

When that was gone she slipped the halter over his nose, on to his obedient neck, buckled it—led him over to the fence, to saddle him.

But just as she had thrown that saddle on, before she could tighten the girths, her breath began to come thick and fast—very thick and fast.

Donnie having fed Revel with a sweet lump and jerked his curls from her, with a remonstrating: “You don’t t’ink hair’s hay; do you?” let her gentle head find his pocket for herself—and extract a second lump of sugar.

Somebody was watching the trick—Cartoon! Cartoon not destined to be ridden to-day; though not an outlaw, he was a churl, with his stubborn Roman nose, flaring nostrils, fiery breath, his sharp triangular face—almost a hatchet face.

Cartoon was creeping slyly through the pasture grass, with a low snort, his head not only high, as Revelation carried his, but the chin in a little, touching his chest—and the greedy meaning there.

“Don’t give Revel any more sugar now, Donnie-boy! She’s had enough.” Una was drawing her horse away. “Here! show me the puppy. Have you one for me—I’d like a dog?”

“Of course he has.” Donnie’s father turned his head from where, at a little distance off, he was showing Dorothy how to post, rise gracefully in her saddle, hold her whip well back. “Of course he has a a pup for you, Miss Una. Which do you want, a male or female?”

“’Tisn’t—’tisn’t either of those,” protested Donnie indignantly. “It’s an Airedale!”

There was a laugh. Una drew Revel off towards the fence. The farmer moved away, starting Dorothy off on a preliminary canter round the pasture.

The eight who were to ride this morning had, by this time, captured their mounts.

It was then that Cartoon, stealing up, sniffed his opportunity. His sharp nose, rooting in the air, said: “Sugar” and told him that the sweets were in the breastpocket of a little child.

It was then that Pemrose, watching afar, felt her “rooting” breath suddenly become a snort, an excited “Weugh!” like his.

Leaving Revelation with the white saddle-girths dangling, she started to run across the pasture, crying out as she did so.

But Cartoon was quick—greedy and quick. Taking short, mincing steps in his excitement, his breath coming in very short puffs, he stole up behind the child, lowered his high head and began feeling him over—rooting softly with his nose near the tiny pocket.

Donnie started and saw, not Revel’s fair “nuzzling” face near to his, but the dark, ugly, Roman-nosed one.

The child gave a scream and plunged away—tripped in his terror and fell.

The horse plunged, too, with a baffled snort, wheeled crossly, lashing his heels out.

“Oh! God help—” breathed Pemrose, in the utter horror of helplessness—for she was many, many yards away.

And then the angel of God appeared—appeared so suddenly, in such an unlooked-for shape that Pem, dazzled, saw two of her—and three of Cartoon.

It was a girl with wide dark eyes in whose blaze the angel of God had bared his scabbard, his scabbard of deliverance, a girl with face waxen-white as a snow-flower—a girl who “went through life as daintily as if she were picking a flower”—who was snatching Donnie from the proximity of those lashing heels—within an inch of being struck by them herself.

“U-na!” Pemrose’s hand went to her cold cheek—she was fairly stricken still, out in the middle of the Long Pasture.

“Goodness! I—I don’t know how I did it,” said Una, sinking down.