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“I should say so. What are you going to do with her, Dad?” he asked.

Bard’s slit-like eyes narrowed even more than usual, as for a moment, he chewed meditatively.

“Goin’ to get rid of her,” he said, with the careless quickness of one pronouncing expert opinion. “Sorry I raised her, Bill. Never liked her sire. Thompson never had much luck with that Percheron stud. He’s been leadin’ that horse around down the Clark Settlement, and I seen some o’ the colts. All the same!”

“What’s the matter with the bay mare?” Mauney enquired anxiously.

“She’s goin’ to be sold—that’s what’s the matter with her!” he replied curtly. “And I don’t want to hear no growlin’, understand me!”

“I wasn’t growling.”

“No—but you was a-thinkin’ in them terms.”

“Well, I thought she was mine, Dad. You gave her to me when she was a colt. I never thought so much of any animals as I do of her, and, more than that, I never noticed anything wrong with her.”

“H’m!” sneered Bard. “You got to go into farmin’ a little deeper’n you do, to notice anything.”