that your rightful owner will prove willing to sell
you after a time." With this she picked up the
bottle and left him.

And nothing did come of the advertisement.
Felipe did not read the papers, and his knowledge
of city affairs was such that he did not set up
intelligent quest for the colt.

So the colt remained in the Richards' corral.
Regularly two and three times a day the girl
came to feed him, and regularly as his reward each
time he bunted the bottle out of her hand afterward.
Also, between meals she spent much time
in his society, and on these occasions relieved the
tedium of his diet with loaf sugar, and, after a
while, quartered apples. For these sweets he soon
developed a passion, and he would watch her
comings with a feverish anxiety that always
brought a smile to her ready lips. And thus began,
and thus went on, their friendship, a friendship
that with the passing months ripened into
strongest attachment, but which presently was
to be interrupted for a long time.

Hint of this came to him gradually. From
spending long periods with him every day his
mistress, after each feeding now, took to hurrying
away from him. Sometimes, so great was her haste
to get back to the house, she actually ran out of
the corral. It worried him, and he would follow
her to the gate, and there stand with nose between
the boards and eyes turned after her, whimpering
softly. And finally, with his bottle displaced by
more solid food, and the visits of his mistress be-

[[42]]

p041 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p042w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p043

v?