Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/242

 Twenty Mile. Though he knew nothing of the horse between his knees, he counted on the girl's failure to get out of a rebellious Tige one-half that little horse was capable of giving.

But he had not gone ten miles before he became convinced the girl was not ahead of him. Dismounting, he had examined with lighted matches the thin dust lying over the hard 'dobe of the road; no cut hoof marks in the dew-drenched ribbon of dirt. Where had she turned off, and why?

Then he remembered one of Tige's little tricks. Whenever he rode Tige over this road to Teapot, if there were no pressing hurry, he allowed the little horse to take a cross trail leading a mile off the road to a salt lick. Never had he passed that cross trail without a pantomime of protest on Tige's part. It was one of their little games—a secret between friends, this ear-flattening and angry side-stepping mock heroics on Tige's part. Back to the cross trail rode Original. Once more the lighted match. Tige's trail lay plain as a painted arrow along the salt-lick path; the hoof prints showed he had swerved at full gallop and without his rider's knowledge, for there was no break made by a bridle tug.