his name. Again she received no answering
whinny. She entered the stable, walked past the
stalls, peered in at each with increasing alarm.
Only the saddle-horse and the family horse met
her troubled eyes. She stood for a moment dismayed,
then once more she sounded the horse's
name. But, as before, she received no answering
whinny.

Puzzled, perplexed, troubled with misgivings,
yet refusing to believe the worst, she fell to analyzing
the thing. She knew that since coming to the
ranch Pat at no time had been outside the corral
save in her charge. Also she recalled that only
a short hour or two before she had given him sweets
and had talked with him. Nor could the horse
have strayed out of the inclosure, because she
remembered that the gate was latched when she
had reached it. All these facts flashed across her
as she stood with grave eyes sweeping the stable.
Finally she stepped back to the door and gazed
out into the sunlight of the corral; but, as before,
the inclosure was empty and silent, and now,
somehow, forbidding. She called again -- called
to the horse, called to the Mexican. But again
came only the echo of her voice, sounding hollow
and solemn and plaintive through the stable.

Suddenly her heart stopped beating. She
remembered that the hostler had left for town on
foot early in the morning. And now her fears
broke bounds. The horse was gone! Some one
had come in Miguel's absence. Her Pat had been
stolen! He was gone for ever out of her life!

[[95]]

p094 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p095w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p096

v?