demurely, they would back slowly against the fence, and try to throw it down, and Tom, fascinated like a small boy by them, would watch and say nothing.
Discipline was excellent. The company allowed no drinking. Otherwise it was extremely indulgent. It fed its people well, gave them certain hours of work and then let them alone. Order began to assert itself; the horses, fed oats daily and worked regularly, began to sweat off their winter coats. The Cossacks, riding them like demons for two or three hours, cared for them carefully afterwards, rubbed them down, watched them for saddle and cinch sores.
Emulation too began to put them on their toes. When the Cossacks rode standing on their saddles, their toes in their soft-soled boots caught in the tops of their saddle pockets, there was a raid on rubber-soled tennis shoes in town, and the cowboys tried it without pockets.
And then one day a switch engine backed onto the siding nearby, with forty yellow circus cars in its wake. Tom sat that evening as usual in the doorway with the little Cossack who had been a prince, but he taught him no English that night. He was oddly depressed and quiet.
"You are sad tonight, my friend," said the Cossack, in Russian.
Tom did not understand, of course, but perhaps the tone meant something to him. He stirred and pointed to the cars, on the siding in the moonlight.
"Tea party's about over, Murphy! I wonder how you'll like it when it rains, and we're working in mud to our knees."
"Once, at home," said the little Cossack thoughtfully, still in Russian, "I fell in love with a lady of the circus. She was very beautiful. But my people—Ah!"
They smoked in silence. Each was thinking of a lost lady, but the little Cossack's eyes were tender, and Tom's were hard.
It was the next day that Little Dog joined the show. Tom, wandering into the store to buy a bottle of pop for Tony the bear, saw him and standing still, watched him warily. The store was crowded. At the rear squaws in
