Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/82

 The Man from Bar-20 not have heard it; but the horse heard it and nickered again. What fools these men were! Did her master think that she had to hear a whistle to know that he was about, when the wind was right and he was so close?

Pepper was a well-trained, intelligent animal, and Johnny knew it better than anyone else; and Pepper had a strong aversion to strangers, which he also knew; and knowing that, he was instantly assured that there were no strangers in the immediate vicinity because Pepper was thoroughly at her ease. The black head thrust forward into his face and the bared teeth snapped at him, whereupon he playfully cuffed the velvety nozzle. Pepper forthwith swung her head suddenly and knocked off her master's hat, and pretended to be in a fine rage.

"You old coyote!" chuckled Johnny, cuffing her again. "Cussed if you ain't th' most no-account old fool I ever saw. But I ought to be kicked from here to Hastings an' back again for leavin' that saddle on you all afternoon an' night. Will some sugar square it? Hey! Get out of my pocket—it's in th' shack," he laughed. And there was a note in his laughter that a horse of Pepper's intelligence might easily understand.

Mounting, he rode across the clearing, and when he reached the water course he followed it to his 70