while. "Those poor, miserable horses -- half-starved,
cruelly beaten, yet of God's own making!"
She was silent. "Suppose you had been born to
that service, Pat -- born to that oppression! You
are one of the fortunate!" And she bent forward
and stroked him. "One of the fortunate!" she
repeated, thoughtfully.

Indeed Pat was just that. But not in the way
Helen meant. For such was the whim of Fate,
and such is the limit of human understanding,
she did not know, and never would know, save
by the grace of that Fate, that Pat had been born
in just that service, born to just that oppression;
that only by the kindness of Fate he had been
released from that service, that oppression, that
he had been guided out of that environment and
cast into a more kindly, bigger, and truer
environment -- her own!

But Pat only blinked stolid indifference at the
spectacle. He appeared to care nothing for the
misery of other horses, nor to appreciate her tenderness
when directed elsewhere than toward
himself. After a time, as if to reveal this, he set
out of his own volition toward a particularly inviting
bit of flower, dainty yellow in the brown
of the desert. Plucking this morsel, he fell to
munching it in contentment, and continued to
munch it till the last vestige disappeared. Then,
again of his own volition, he broke into a canter.
Helen smiled and pulled him down.

"You're a strange horse, Pat," she declared,
and fell to stroking him again. "And not the

[[75]]

p074 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p075w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p076

v?