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the little horse every day?" asked the ringmaster at last.

"Oh! Oh! I'd like it better than anything else in the world. I would work every hour of the day to learn. I would be as good to him as though he was my brother. I never would strike him, and I would thrash any one who did."

Freckles's eyes shone like stars. His face was radiant and his voice trembled. The ringmaster divined at once that he was a real horse-lover and a boy that he could trust. He was the sort the circus was looking for.

"All right, boy," he said. "You're on."