this horse?” I asked knowingly. “No, you can’t or you’d know that I’ve cheated you. Do you know that he came from General Kolwich’s stable and was sold for four hundred roubles? I should have paid that for him, had you pressed me. I shall get five for him. But you should learn to know a horse when you see one.”

He pushed his cap back and scratched his head, and invoked the name of the Deity in a despair that was almost pathetic.

I rode off with a chuckle. I knew that I had[46] struck deep into his pride as a horse trader, and that he would now keep his lips as close as a rat trap about the whole transaction. He would brood over it, and wait for the day when he could get even with me; but though the skies fell, he would never speak of that horse again to any one.

[46]

The bargaining had taken nearly an hour, and I feared the sands of Volna’s patience would be running out fast.

She greeted me with a sigh of relief. “I had begun to fear all sorts of things.”

“You have never had to buy a horse in these parts. It’s an acquired art and can only be accomplished with many lies and much time. But we’ll be off now. You can manage to ride bare-back, I hope?”

She smiled. “I have ridden bare-back ever since I was a child.”

“Then you haven’t had time yet to forget.”

“Is that a reflection on my youth or another compliment?”

“It’s about the truth, that’s all.”

“I’m nearly one and twenty,” she declared with a delightful air of dignity.

“It is a great age,” I agreed. “I remember how I felt at the time. One is never so old again, they say, until quite late in life.”

I helped her to mount. “Bare-back riding is a little undignified for one and twenty, I’m afraid. Now we are really off and in our new characters. Do you know who you are?”

[47]“Miss Margaret Garrett, an English girl who is very troubled what to do with the r’s in her name.”

[47]

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