Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/68

 "But why don't you have a nicer lookin' horse?" she persisted.

Then came another of Lonely's dangerous moments. He saw red, and murdered Truth. That Plato had been purchased for fourteen dollars on the market square of Cowansburg, and had been looked upon, first as an instrument of the intended migration, and later as a docile and patient steed for the bake-shop delivery wagon, no longer troubled Lonely.

"Why," he spluttered, "that horse took Pop over the White Pass!"

"Ginger-pop?" asked Annie Eliza, brightening.

"No, Pop,—the old man! An' horses was fallin' dead all around, but Plato, he kept right on, till he got over that White Pass!"

"Where 's the White Pass?"

"Why, up in the Klondike somewheres, where Pop made his fortune. Plato there was Pop's best friend all through that trip, an' showed him the way out of a blizzard once, an' another time came an' found him when he was lost!"

"Goodness!" exclaimed Annie Eliza.

"An'—an' Pop says he 's just like a brother