been on the losing side. Tom suggested that the pensioner's colts, as the homesteader called them, be left there. The grateful man was glad to assume the responsibility for their delivery, and cut them out accordingly. The beasts were quite willing, even relieved, to stop, worn down to the last strain of endurance as they were by the longest and hardest drive they ever had experienced in their burdened lives.
Not so the Block E mare which had led the band on the homeward trip. She was off at the word, head up, tail out, stepping high and eagerly. She led the herd in at the open gate, as much pride in her bearing as if fully conscious of the dramatic situation, although there was nobody around to witness the triumphant arrival but the wheezy old dog.
He came bounding off the kitchen porch with a show of hostility not at all complimentary to the mare's pride in her achievement, not knowing his own among so many strange ones. The noise he made, together with the trampling of so many hoofs, brought Eudora out of the house like a bumblebee after a haymaker. Mrs. Ellison was a good second. They stopped in amazement at sight of the parade, Eudora poised like a dove on a bough ready to plunge off into flight.
But she had no hesitancy over her course. She flashed to the gate, where Tom Simpson sat the horse that lately had belonged, at least according to the equity of thieves, to Noah Hays, herding the hesitant animals and the strange ones into the barnyard.
"My-y heavens! it's Tom!" Mrs. Ellison exclaimed.
Then she went flying, not so much like a dove, per-
