acres or so somewhere near the home station to be used for horses in
active service. Before I could anticipate him, he had sidled his horse
skillfully alongside the gate and was holding it open for me to pass. I
rode through the opening murmuring thanks and an apology. The old man
followed me through, and halted me by placing his horse square across
the path of mine.

"You are now, sir, outside my land and therefore no longer my guest," he
said, and the snap in his voice was like the crackling of electricity.
"Don't let me ever see you here again. You are keen and intelligent. You
spoke the truth a short time since. You were right. I tolerate nothing
in my place that is not my own--no man, no animal, no bird, no insect
nor reptile even--that will not obey my lightest order. And these
creatures, great or small, who will not--_or even cannot_--obey my
orders must go--or die. Understand me clearly?

"You have come here, actuated, I believe, by idle curiosity, but without
knowledge. You made yourself--ignorantly--my guest; and a guest is
sacred. But now you know my customs and ideas. I am telling you. Never
again can you come here in ignorance; therefore never again can you come
here as a guest; and never again will you pass freely."

He delivered this drily, precisely, with frost in his tones, staring
balefully into my eyes. So taken aback was I by this unleashed hostility
that for a moment I had nothing to say.

"Now, if you please, I will take both notes from that poor idiot: the
one I handed you and the one she handed you."

I realized suddenly that the two lay together in the breast pocket of my