Page:Post--Dwellers in the hills.djvu/26

10 have a little more air in his throat. Then he said: "He was a big, brown horse with a bald face, an' he struck out with his knees when he trotted. Them 's the Woodford horses. The saddle was black with long skirts, an' it had only one girth. Them 's the Woodford saddles. An' the stirrups was iron, an' there are only one Woodford who rides with his feet in iron."

I looked at Jud, searching his face for some trace of doubt on which to hang a little hoping, but it was all bronze and very greatly troubled. Then he saw what I wanted, and began to stammer. "May be the horse was tender, an' that was the reason." But Ump piped in, scattering the little cloud, "That horse ain't lame. He trots square as a dog."

Jud looked away and swung up in his saddle. "May be," he stammered, "may be the horse throwed him, an' that was the reason." Again Ump, the destroyer of little hopes, answered from the back of the Bay Eagle, "No horse ever throwed Hawk Rufe."

I sucked in the air over my bit lips when Ump named him. Rufe Woodford with