“Assuredly.  And very happy indeed am I to get him.  Al, you said, I think, that Mr. Stewart named him after me—­saw my nickname in the New York paper?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I will not change his name.  But, Al, how shall I ever climb up on him?  He’s taller than I am.  What a giant of a horse!  Oh, look at him—­he’s nosing my hand.  I really believe he understood what I said.  Al, did you ever see such a splendid head and such beautiful eyes?  They are so large and dark and soft—­and human.  Oh, I am a fickle woman, for I am forgetting White Stockings.”

“I’ll gamble he’ll make you forget any other horse,” said Alfred.  “You’ll have to get on him from the porch.”

As Madeline was not dressed for the saddle, she did not attempt to mount.

“Come, Majesty—­how strange that sounds!—­we must get acquainted.  You have now a new owner, a very severe young woman who will demand loyalty from you and obedience, and some day, after a decent period, she will expect love.”

Madeline led the horse to and fro, and was delighted with his gentleness.  She discovered that he did not need to be led.  He came at her call, followed her like a pet dog, rubbed his black muzzle against her.  Sometimes, at the turns in their walk, he lifted his head and with ears forward looked up the trail by which he had come, and beyond the foothills.  He was looking over the range.  Some one was calling to him, perhaps, from beyond the mountains.  Madeline liked him the better for that memory, and pitied the wayward cowboy who had parted with his only possession for very love of it.

That afternoon when Alfred lifted Madeline to the back of the big roan she felt high in the air.

“We’ll have a run out to the mesa,” said her brother, as he mounted.  “Keep a tight rein on him and ease up when you want him to go faster.  But don’t yell in his ear unless you want Florence and me to see you disappear on the horizon.”

He trotted out of the yard, down by the corrals, to come out on the edge of a gray, open flat that stretched several miles to the slope of a mesa.  Florence led, and Madeline saw that she rode like a cowboy.  Alfred drew on to her side, leaving Madeline in the rear.  Then the leading horses broke into a gallop.  They wanted to run, and Madeline felt with a thrill that she would hardly be able to keep Majesty from running, even if she wanted to.  He sawed on the tight bridle as the others drew away and broke from pace to gallop.  Then Florence put her horse into a run.  Alfred turned and called to Madeline to come along.