With a queer gripping of the muscles in his throat he did turn, then, and saw Rambler's head over the little ridge he had just crossed.

The horse was making shift to follow him rather than be left alone in that strange country.

Ford waited, his lashes glistening in the first rays of the new-risen sun, until the horse came hobbling stiffly up to him.
"You old devil!" he murmured then, his contrite tone contrasting oddly with the words he used.

"You contrary, ornery, old devil, you!" he repeated softly, rubbing the speckled nose with more affection than he had ever shown a woman.

"You'd tag along, if--if you didn't have but one leg to carry you! And I was going to--" He could not bring himself to confess his meditated deed of mercy; it seemed black-hearted treachery, now, and he stood ashamed and humbled before the dumb brute that nuzzled him with such implicit faith.
It was slow journeying, after that.