Chapter 23 - Page 2

with his feet in simulation of Mountain Lad.

"I'll have Leo know that he is not the only poet and love-knight on the ranch. Listen to Mountain Lad's song, all wonder and wild delight, Terrence, and more. Mountain Lad doesn't moon about the loved one. He doesn't moon at all. He incarnates love, and rears right up in meeting and tells them so. Listen to him!"

Dick filled the room and shook the air with wild, glad, stallion nickering; and then, with mane-tossing and foot-pawing, chanted:

"Hear me! I am Eros! I stamp upon the hills. I fill the wide valleys. The mares hear me, and startle, in quiet pastures; for they know me. The land is filled with fatness, and the sap is in the trees. It is the spring. The spring is mine. I am monarch of my kingdom of the spring. The mares remember my voice. They knew me aforetimes through their mothers before them. Hear me! I am Eros. I stamp upon the hills, and the wide valleys are my heralds, echoing the sound of my approach."

It was the first time the sages of the madrono grove had heard Dick's song, and they were loud in applause. Hancock took it for a fresh start in the discussion, and was beginning to elaborate a biologic Bergsonian definition of love, when he was stopped by Terrence, who had noticed the pain that swept across Leo's face.

"Go on, please, dear lady," Terrence begged. "And sing of love, only of love; for it is my experience that I meditate best upon the stars to the accompaniment of a woman's voice."

A little later, Oh Joy, entering the room, waited till Paula finished a song, then moved noiselessly to Graham and handed him a telegram. Dick scowled at the interruption.

"Very important--I think," the Chinese explained to him.

"Who took it?" Dick demanded.

"Me--I took it," was the answer. "Night clerk at Eldorado call on telephone. He say important. I take it."

"It is, fairly so," Graham spoke up, having finished reading the message. "Can I get a train out to-night for San Francisco, Dick?"

"Oh Joy, come back a moment," Dick called, looking at his watch. "What train for San Francisco stops at Eldorado?"

"Eleven-ten," came the instant information. "Plenty time. Not too much. I call chauffeur?"

Dick nodded.

"You really must jump out to-night?" he asked Graham.

"Really. It is quite important. Will I have time to pack?"

Dick gave a confirmatory nod to Oh Joy, and said to Graham:

"Just time to throw the needful into a grip." He turned to Oh Joy. "Is Oh My up yet?"

"Yessr."

"Send him to Mr. Graham's room to help, and let me know as soon as the machine is ready. No limousine. Tell Saunders to take the