called nervous if I tell the truth about things; when I rode into the
shadow I stopped whistling a bad imitation of meadow-lark notes. A bit
farther and I pulled up, looked all around, and got off and tightened the
cinch a bit more. Shylock--I always rode him when I could--threw his head
around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him I
forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game I was playing. Then I loosened my
gun--I had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the
other boys--made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and
went on. Around the next turn a five-wired fence stretched across the
trail, with a gate fastened by a chain and padlock. I whistled under my
breath, and eyed the lock with extreme disfavor.

But I had learned a trick of the cowboys. I pulled the wire off a couple
of posts at one side of the gate, laid them flat on the ground, and led
Shylock over them. Then I found a rock, pounded the staples back in place,
and went on; only for the tracks, one could not notice that any had passed
that way. Still, it was a bit ticklish, riding down King's Highway alone
and with no idea of what lay farther on. But dad had dared go that way,
and to fight at the far end; and what dad had not been afraid to tackle,
it did not behoove his son to back down from. I made Shylock walk the next
half-mile, with some notion of saving his wind for an emergency run.

Of a sudden I rounded a sharp nose of hill and came plump on the palace of
the King. It looked a good deal like the Bay State Ranch--big corrals and
sheds and stables, and little place for man to dwell. The house, though,
was bigger than ours, and looked more comfortable to live in. And the
thing that struck me most was the head which King displayed for strategy.
The trail wound between those same sheds and corrals, a gantlet two
hundred yards long that one must run or turn back. On either side the
bluffs rose sheer, with the buildings crowding close against their base.