Page:Son of the wind.djvu/28

 Carron wondered as he made ready the irritable chestnut for her night's lodging, whether that last stall belonged to Rader's horse. The thought made him anxious. "Is the horse that belongs in that stall coming back to-night?" he asked the boy who had come out of the harness room with a blanket over his arm.

The strange creature only stared.

Mindful of Mrs. Rader's advice, Carron went close to him, but some lack in the face made it repugnant. He could not bring himself to touch the fellow. He raised his voice and pointed behind him. "Is the horse that belongs there, in that stall, coming back to-night?"

The boy's gaze intensified, seemed to concentrate, and, if the face had not been so blank, Carron would have fancied a pale glare of hostility in the eyes; but the lips, showing a faint gleam of teeth behind their relaxed line, remained unmoved.

Carron took the blanket and went into the stall. He felt uncomfortable out of reason. While he settled the covering over the chestnut's pettish shoulders and fastened her, he had an uneasy consciousness of the boy's eyes, like an observing animal's, following every movement. He took off his duster, flicked off his boots, shook the worst dust from his hair, gathered up the gun cases in the back of the