"
She dressed quickly and went outside into the sunlight, the cat at her
heels, the thrill of that one command filling the gray monotone of the
hills with wonderful possibilities of adventure. Her father had made no
objection before when she went for a ride. He had merely instructed her
to keep to the trails, and if she didn't know the way home, to let the
reins lie loose on Yellowjacket's neck and he would bring her to the
gate.
Yellowjacket's instinct for direction had not been working that day,
however. Lorraine had no sooner left the ranch out of sight behind her
than she pretended that she was lost. Yellowjacket had thereupon walked
a few rods farther and stopped, patiently indifferent to the location of
his oats box. Lorraine had waited until his head began to droop lower
and lower, and his switching at flies had become purely automatic.
Yellowjacket was going to sleep without making any effort to find the
way home. But since Lorraine had not told her father anything about it,
his injunction could not have anything to do with the unreliability of
the horse.
"Now," she said to the cat, "if three or four bandits would appear on
the ridge, over there, and come tearing down into the immediate
foreground, jump the gate and surround the house, I'd know this was the
real thing.
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