Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/14

 "I suppose,"—Doug's voice was bitter—"that if I rode over toward Day's to meet Jimmy you'd have to tag!"

"I sure-gawd would. Swift would like the extra exercise."

Douglas swept Judith's thin bay mare with a withering glance. "That thing! Looks like the coyotes had been at it!"

Judith wore but one spur and this had a broken rowell [sic], but she kicked Swift with it and Swift whirled against the nervous Buster and bit him on the cheek. Buster reared. "Take that back, you dogy cowboy you!" shrieked Judith.

Douglas brought Buster round and raised his hand to strike the girl. She eyed him fearlessly. The boy slowly lowered the threatening hand and returned her gaze, belligerently.

Prince, a gray, short-haired dog, of intricate ancestry, squatted on his haunches in the snow with his tongue between his teeth and his eyes on the two horses. Swift sagged with a sigh onto three legs. Perhaps the little mare deserved some of the aspersions Douglas and his father daily cast upon her. She was a half-broken, half-fed little mare which Douglas' father had cast off. She did not look strong enough to bear even Judith's slim weight. But as the only horse Judith was permitted to call her own, the little bay was the very apple of the young girl's eyes, and she wheedled wonderful performances from Swift in endurance and cat-like quickness.

Buster was a black which the older Spencer had bred as a cow-pony but had given up because he could not be broken of bucking. Doug had bested his father for the horse, and Buster, nervous, irritable and speedy, was a joy to the boy's sixteen-year-old heart.

Douglas sat tall in the saddle. He measured, in fact,