Part 10 (1/2)

'Oh, what asses we have been!' Te, Richie! They 're picking up the fellows like windfalls'

I told his; and he was staggering, answering Saddlebank's reproaches for having co traer Poor Teht

With the instinct to defeat the master, I crawled in the line of the shadows to the farther side of a tent, where I felt a hand clutch mine 'Hide me,' said I; and the curtain of the tent was raised After squeezing through boxes and straw, I lay flat, covered by aof abominable cheese, and felt a head outside it on er pronounced er: 'Rye!'

Temple's ansas inaudible to me Saddlebank spoke, and other boys, and the ht was thrust in the tent, and the man said, 'Me deceive you, sir! See for yourself, to satisfy yourself

Here's our little uns laid war down to join her tribe at Lipcombe, and one of our women sleeps here, and all told But for you to suspect ot ht went away My chest was relieved of the weight on it I sat up, and the creature who had been kind to round, and drew my head on her shoulder, where I slept fast

CHAPTER VII A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD

I woke very early, though I had taken kindly toan arers intertwisted withat her eyes, which had every inification in thehed at my wonder, they said, 'Dear little fellow!' they flashed as from under a cloud, darkened, flashed out of it, seemed to dip in water and shi+ne, and were sometimes like a view into a forest, sometimes intensely sunny, never quite still I trusted her, and could have slept again, but the sight of the tent stupefied asped for air; my head was extre This confusion of o forth In a fit of horror I thought, 'I 've forgotten hoalk!'

Su my manful resolution, I made the atte and straw and old gowns or petticoats The necessity for doing it with a rush seized ht on to the figure of a sleeping wohty Jackie' My coood breath of it in , and knehat had occurred The tent where I had slept struck me as more curious than my own circumstances I lifted my face to the sky; it was just sunrise, beautiful; bits of long and curling cloud brushed any way close on the blue, and rosy and white, deliciously cool; the grass was all grey, our dell in shadow, and the tops of the trees burning, a few birds twittering

I sucked a blade of grass

'I wish it was all water here,' I said

'Come and have a drink and a bathe,' said my companion

We went down the dell and over a juniper slope, re me of my day at John Salter's house and the last of dear Heriot Rather to ; she was very swift, and s were stiff

'Can you swim?' she asked me

'I can row, and swim, and fence, and ride, and fire a pistol,' I said

'Oh, dear,' said she, after eyeing me enviously I could see that I had checked a recital of her accoentlerass rolled smooth as sea-water on a fine day, and cows and horses were feeding

'I can catch that horse and mount him,' she said

I was astonished

'Straddle?'

She nodded down for 'Yes'

'No saddle?'

She nodded level for 'No'