Jim looked at the brown colt that just came trotting up as dad
finished speaking -- trotting up with his head high and his tail stuck out
like a circus horse. If he'd been the devil in a horsehide
he couldn't have chosen a better moment. Then his eyes began to glitter.

We all three looked at each other. No one spoke. The colt stopped,
turned, and galloped back to his mates like a red flyer with the dogs
close behind him.

It was not long. We all began to speak at once. But in that time
the die was cast, the stakes were down, and in the pool
were three men's lives.

`I don't care whether we go back or not,' says Jim; `I'll do either way
that Dick likes. But that colt I must have.'

`I never intended to go back,' I said. `But we're three d----d fools
all the same -- father and sons. It'll be the dearest horse you ever bought,
Jim, old man, and so I tell you.'

`Well, I suppose it's settled now,' says father; `so let's have no more chat.
We're like a pack of old women, blessed if we ain't.'

After that we got on more sociably. Father took us all over the place,
and a splendid paddock it was -- walled all round but where we had come in,
and a narrow gash in the far side that not one man in a thousand
could ever hit on, except he was put up to it; a wild country for miles
when you did get out -- all scrub and rock, that few people ever had call
to ride over. There was splendid grass everywhere, water, and shelter.
It was warmer, too, than the country above, as you could see