Chapter VIII

Could I not make some sound or sign to make him understand? I turned on him eager eyes and whinnied in a low, urgent manner.

He stopped abruptly and looked at me attentively.

“Jolly!” he cried, “how exactly you whinny like that little hossy I knew a few months ago.”

I tried again, stretching far my neck in endeavour to reach his kindly hands.

He dropped a mass of brush and came close to me.

I rubbed my head against his shoulder, beseeching in every way I could that he would find me out.

The boy looked puzzled. “If only your coat wasn’t so black,” he murmured, “I’d surely think I knew you, but it couldn’t be a pony would change like that.”

He rubbed his hand along my neck. Ah! that was just what I wanted him to do.

“How rough you are!” he murmured again. “Not half combed. I wonder where Lord Rondo keeps the curry? He didn’t tell me not to use it; perhaps thought I wouldn’t know how. Ah, I see it on this nail. Great comb I should say: stumpy, harsh, bah! What a thing to use on a decent pony!”

He ran it slowly, deeply, along my neck, then paused and looked at it. I trembled with joy and anxiety.

“I never felt such sticky, stubby hair on any created beast before,” he said under his breath.

I whinnied and moved close to him as I could.

“You want a good, thorough cleaning, don’t you?” he asked, his hand on my head.

I tried to whinny. “Yes, oh, yes!”

He ran the comb along the same place.

“You look brown where I’ve scraped,” he said, the puzzled look deepening on his face.

“Hossy,” he cried softly, “I’m going to _wash_ you where I’ve combed and scraped, but don’t tell.”

He went out and was gone some time. When he came back he had found a rag and a bit of soap. Then he rubbed and rubbed. Finally he gave a long, low, and much surprised whistle.

“As true as you’re a born pony, you’re a _bay_,” he said, “and—jinks! but I understand!”

I stamped, whinnied and stepped and stepped with excitement.

“Oh, I’ll find you out fast enough now, I reckon,” he added, as if in reply to my urgent antics.

He felt my fetlock, carried a slow, cautious hand across my left knee; “Yes, that’s where it was hurt and swelled,” he ruminated.

I switched my tail and fairly nodded my head, trying to assure him he was perfectly correct.

Then to my joy he looked into my mouth.

“The very hossy!” he exclaimed with a gleesome chuckle. “I said I should want to know you if we met again, and here we are! Nippers show over three years of age, milk teeth all gone. Now, Mister Pony, let me tell you a story:—”

“There was a great hullabaloo when a certain pony’s stall was found empty one morning early in last July. Tillings at Mr. Van Vim’s stable was wild about it. He was sure the stable door was securely bolted the night before, and no sound reached him during the night.”

“The meanest thing about it was”—the lively voice dropped, and it was in hurt, grieved tones that the boy went on, “Perley Bolt, your former master, raised a story that I, _I_ had let you out!” I looked around. “Oh, I know you well enough now,” he said with decision; “you’re the ‘Dexter’ that disappeared from Greenpoint three months ago, and has not been heard from since.”

“You see, Perley Bolt never forgave my helping poor pony the day he was left tied, head up, in the sun, without food or water and with a hurt knee.”

“More than one person was sadly put out by your disappearance. Mr. Van Vim felt you a considerable loss. Perley Bolt made a great noise about it; blustered, scolded and said you must be found, as he considered you were almost as good as his again, and finally tried to fasten the matter on me.”

“I am thankful to say the story was so ridiculous no one believed it, for those who knew me best, knew me for at least an honest boy, who would have wronged no one in such a way. Besides, when they looked around in the morning, there were footprints in the mud where the hose had been used before the stable door, that must have been made by a man wearing about a number ten shoe. Such a shoe as Lord Rondo must wear.”

“I had been working for my half-uncle, a hard, driving man, who would give me no chance for study, paid me almost nothing, and never praised me even when I became almost sick in my efforts to please him.”

“Perhaps the person who felt the worst over your vanishing, next to Mr. Van Vim and Tillings, was Mr. Clifton Moore. He is soon to marry sweet Gladys Fleming, and as she was very much in love with you, he had it all arranged that you were to be one of his wedding presents. Perley Bolt would not have got you anyway.”

“Now I must think up what to do. I’ve been going westward, hoping to get steady work, but I’ll get you back where you belong somehow,—see if I don’t!”.

After a few moments I heard the boy mutter, “Now I must cover up my tracks;” and after a long search he came with the familiar pot of black juice in his hand, and carefully smoothed over where he had rubbed the blackness off.

My heart seemed at rest. When, or in what manner “Archie” would restore me to rightful owners I could not tell. But the very idea of occupying what now looked to me like the most luxurious place in the world, my box stall at Van Vim’s stable, and receiving Tillings’ skilled care, was enough to make me patient and almost content.

True, I was kept in the dark a number of days as to what Archie intended to do, for there was further delay; Nick’s recovery was tryingly slow, and Archie had stayed on for a week, when one morning he came to the shed, his face troubled, his voice trembling with indignation.

“Hossy,” he began, “your time has come; _our_ time I mean. Rondo refuses to pay me what he promised. He says I have only earned my keep. He agreed to give me fifty cents a day in money: little enough for what I’ve had to do and the miserable scraps of food I’ve had to put up with.”

“I’m sure now that he was the one who stole you, for last night when I was snoring to pretend sleep, I heard Mother Hubbard ask:”

“‘Wot would you do, Rondo, if Greenpoint folks found out as you took Don?’”

“I heard an angry cluck, then all was still.”

“Mother Hubbard took great risk in asking such a question when I was in the tent, even if I was asleep, and even though she never supposed I had ever heard of such a place as Greenpoint. Be patient a bit longer, Pony Dexter, and we’ll see what we’ll see.”

At noon back he came to the shaky shed, his face one broad grin, yet with a manner so quiet and reliant, I knew something of importance was about to happen.

“Great luck, hossy,” he chuckled softly, “great luck!”

“Mother Hubbard goes to some kind of a ‘bazar’ this afternoon in her fortune-telling rig. Nick must have more medicine, and Rondo won’t trust me with money to buy it. Besides, he wants to see a pedlar about borrowing a big horse to help in moving certainly by another week. He knows I intend making off to-morrow, pay or no pay.”

“I’ve told him ‘Don’ must be walked up and down the road, or he’ll be too stiff to travel next week. I hope you could walk pretty briskly now if you tried.”

I kicked out first one hoof, then another. He gave me a sportive slap: “I do believe you could run,” he said with another low chuckle. He went on:

“Now, Dexter, I’m going to have my bundle all ready at the edge of the woods, and as soon as Rondo is out of sight I’ll lead you slowly along out to the road, then—we’ll run for it!”

“Fortunately Rondo goes in a different direction from the one we must take, and if only you have the courage and strength, we’ll be miles away from this place before anyone knows we have gone.”

Up came all my proud, hot blood. I no longer had asthma. I no longer was lame. True, I trembled like a leaf, but only because of my wild desire to be out and away. With Archie on my back, how I would romp and tear, leaving the gloomy woods and the unkempt gipsy tribe far, far behind me.

No knowledge and no care as to how the night would be spent occurred to me; one thing was sure: I should fare as well as my trusty rider, and all the comfort he could devise would be mine.

The grand moment came. Into the shed walked Archie, a grave look on his young face. He knew more than I did of the risk he was about to run, but there was no hint of faltering.

He had to quiet me as we left the shed, for I was inclined to jump and caper at the joyful prospect before me. In fact I was so frisky that only when Archie turned as if to lead me back to the shed could I come down upon my four feet and manage to walk sedately along.

“That’s right, pony,” he cheered, “it will be time enough to show how smart you are when we take to the road in earnest. For a noble trot there is before you, my boy, before we’ll sail or swoop into harbour.”