the path to the stable, and saddled Pard, the brown colt
that Lite had broken to the saddle for her that spring.
In ten minutes or so she went galloping down the coulee
and out upon the trail to town, which was fifteen miles
away and held a chum of hers.

So Lazy A coulee was left at peace, with scratching
hens busy with the feeding of half-feathered chicks,
and a rooster that crowed from the corral fence seven
times without stopping to take breath. In the big
corral a sorrel mare nosed her colt and nibbled
abstractedly at the pile of hay in one corner, while the
colt wabbled aimlessly up and sniffed curiously and then
turned to inspect the rails that felt so queer and hard
when he rubbed his nose against them. The sun was
warm, and cloud-shadows drifted lazily across the coulee
with the breeze that blew from the west. You never
would dream that this was the last day,--the last few
hours even,--when the Lazy A would be the untroubled
home of three persons of whose lives it formed so
great a part.

At noon the hens were hovering their chickens in the
shade of the mower which Lite was overhauling during
his spare time, getting it ready for the hay that was
growing apace out there in the broad mouth of the
coulee. The rooster was wallowing luxuriously in a
dusty spot in the corral. The young colt lay stretched
out on the fat of its side in the sun, sound asleep. The
sorrel mare lay beside it, asleep also, with her head