feared.  And somehow related to that side was his hardness toward Creech and his intolerance of any rider owning a fast horse and his obsession in regard to his own racers.  Lucy had often tantalized her father with the joke that if it ever came to a choice between her and his favorites they would come first.  But was it any longer a joke?  Lucy felt that she had left childhood behind with its fun and fancies, and she had begun to look at life thoughtfully.

Sight of the corrals, however, and of the King prancing around, drove serious thoughts away.  There were riders there, among them Farlane, and they all had pleasant greetings for her.

“Farlane, Dad says I’m to take out Sage King,” announced Lucy.

“No!” ejaculated Farlane, as he pocketed his pipe.

“Sure.  And I’m to ride him.  You know how Dad means that.”

“Wal, now, I’m doggoned!” added Farlane, looking worried and pleased at once.  “I reckon, Miss Lucy, you—­you wouldn’t fool me?”

“Why, Farlane!” returned Lucy, reproachfully.  “Did I ever do a single thing around horses that you didn’t want me to?”

Farlane rubbed his chin beard somewhat dubiously.  “Wal, Miss Lucy, not exactly while you was around the hosses.  But I reckon when you onct got up, you’ve sorta forgot a few times.”

All the riders laughed, and Lucy joined them.

“I’m safe when I’m up, you know that,” she replied.

They brought out the gray, and after the manner of riders who had the care of a great horse and loved him, they curried and combed and rubbed him before saddling him.

“Reckon you’d better ride Van’s saddle,” suggested Farlane.  “Them races is close now, an’ a strange saddle—­”

“Of course.  Don’t change anything he’s used to, except the stirrups,” replied Lucy.

Despite her antipathy toward Sage King, Lucy could not gaze at him without all a rider’s glory in a horse.  He was sleek, so graceful, so racy, so near the soft gray of the sage, so beautiful in build and action.  Then he was the kind of a horse that did not have to be eternally watched.  He was spirited and full of life, eager to run, but when Farlane called for him to stand still he obeyed.  He was the kind of a horse that a child could have played around in safety.  He never kicked.  He never bit.  He never bolted.  It was splendid to see him with Farlane or with Bostil.  He did not like Lucy very well, a fact that perhaps accounted for Lucy’s antipathy.  For that matter, he did not like any woman.  If he had a bad trait, it came out when Van rode him, but all the riders, and Bostil, too, claimed that Van was to blame for that.

“Thar, I reckon them stirrups is right,” declared Farlane.  “Now, Miss Lucy, hold him tight till he wears off thet edge.  He needs work.”

Sage King would not kneel for Lucy as Sarchedon did, and he was too high for her to mount from the ground, so she mounted from a rock.  She took to the road, and then the first trail into the sage, intending to trot him ten or fifteen miles down into the valley, and give him some fast, warm work on the return.