I turns her out on the range, which ought to be the end of the story, but it ain’t.  She come nickerin’ after me like I was her man, hangin’ around when I showed up at the ranch jest like I was a millionaire and she wantin’ to get married.  Couldn’t get shet of her.  So one day I ropes her and says to myself I’ll make a trick hoss of her and sell her.  The fust trick she done wasn’t the one I reckoned to learn her.  She lifted me one in the jeans and I like to lost all the teeth in my head.  ‘You’re welcome, lady,’ says I, ’for this here ‘fectionate token of thanks for my nussin’ and gettin’ joshed to fare-ye-well.  Bein’ set on learnin’ her, I shortened the rope and let her kick a few holes in the climate.  When she got tired of that, I begins workin’ on her head, easy-like and talkin’ kind.  Fust thing I knowed she takes a san’wich out of my shirt, the meat part bein’ a piece of my hide.  Then I got riled.  I lit into her with the boots, and we had it.  When I got tired of exercisin’ my feet, she comes to me rubbin’ her nose ag’in’ me and kind of nickerin’ and lovin’ up tremendous, bein’ a she-hoss.  ‘Now,’ says I, ‘I’m goin’ to do the courtin’, sister.’  And I sot out to learn her to shake hands.  She got most as good as a state senator at it:  purfessional-like, but not real glad to see you.  Jest put on.  Then I learns her to nod yes.  That was hard.  Then I gets her so she would lay down and stay till I told her to get up.  ’Course it takes time and I didn’t have the time reg’lar.  I feeds her every time, though.  Then she took to sleepin’ ag’in’ the bunk-house every night, seein’ as she run loose jest like a dog.  When somebody’d get up in the mornin’, there she would be with her eyes lookin’ in the winder, shinin’, and her ears lookin’ in, too.  You see she was waitin’ for her beau to come out, which was me.  She took to followin’ me on the range when I rid out, and she got fat and sizable.  The boys give up joshin’ and got kind of interested.  But that ain’t what I’m gettin’ at.  Come one day, about two year after I’d been monkeyin’ with learnin’ her her lessons, when I thinks to break her to ride.  I got shet of the idea of sellin’ her and was goin’ to keep her myself.  The boys was lookin’ for to see me get piled, always figurin’ a pet hoss was worse to break than a bronc.  She did some fussin’, but she never bucked—­never pitched a move.  Thinks I, I sure got a winner.  Next day she was gone.  Never seen her after that.  Trailed all over the range, but she sure vamoosed.  And nobody never seen her after that.  She sure made a dent in my feelin’s.”

Sundown sat up blinking.  “I reckon that’s the difference between a hoss and a dog,” he said, slowly.  “Now, a hoss and me ain’t what you’d call a nacheral combination.  And a hoss gets away and don’t come back.  But a dog comes back every time, if he can.  ’Most any hoss will stay where the feedin’ is good, but a dog won’t.  He wants to be where his boss is.”