CHAPTER VI

THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST

At midnight, the Peaceful Hart ranch lay broodily quiet under its
rock-rimmed bluff. Down in tho stable the saddle-horses were but
formless blots upon the rumpled bedding in their stalls--except
Huckleberry, the friendly little pinto with the white eyelashes
and the blue eyes, and the great, liver-colored patches upon his
sides, and the appetite which demanded food at unseasonable
hours, who was now munching and nosing industriously in the
depths of his manger, and making a good deal of noise about it.

Outside, one of the milch cows drew a long, sighing breath of
content with life, lifted a cud in mysterious, bovine manner, and
chewed dreamily. Somewhere up the bluff a bobcat squalled among
the rocks, and the moon, in its dissipated season of late rising,
lifted itself indolently up to where it could peer down upon the
silent ranch.

In the grove where the tiny creek gurgled under the little stone
bridge, someone was snoring rhythmically in ~his blankets, for
the boys had taken to sleeping in the open air before the
earliest rose had opened buds in the sunny shelter of the porch.
Three feet away, a sleeper stirred restlessly, lifted his head
from the pillow, and slapped half-heartedly at an early mosquito
that was humming in his ear. He reached out, and jogged the
shoulder of him who snored.