Wheeled with a quick, questioning
look, suddenly aware that, after all, a woman MIGHT be only a fellow-man;
and as I glanced from one beautiful animal to another he watched keenly,
half expectant and half incredulous.
It did not take long to choose. In the foreground stood a magnificent
brown colt, that caught and held the attention, as it watched every
movement with ears shot forward, and nostrils quivering; and as I pointed
it out Jack's boyish face lit up with surprise and pleasure.
"Talk of luck!" Dan cried, as usual withholding the benefit of the doubt.
"You've picked Jack's fancy."
But it was Jack himself who surprised every one, for, forgetting his
monosyllables, he said with an indescribable ring of fellowship in his
voice, "She's picked out the best in the whole mob," and turned back to
his world among the horses with his usual self-possession.
Dan's eyes opened wide. "Whatever's come to Jack?" he said; but seemed
puzzled at the Maluka's answer that he was "only getting educated." The
truth is, that every man has his vulnerable point, and Jack's was horses.
When the mob had been put through the yards, all the unbroken horses were
given into the Quiet Stockmas's care, and for the next week or two the
stockyard became the only place of real interest; for the homestead,
waiting for the Wet to lift, had settled down to store lists, fencing,
and stud books.
It was not the horses alone that were of interest at the yards; the calm,
fearless, self-reliant man who was handling them was infinitely more so.
Nothing daunted or disheartened him; and in those hours spent on the
stockyard fence, in the shade of a spreading tree, I learnt to know the
Quiet Stockman for the man he was.
If any one would know the inner character of a fellow man, let him put
him to horse-breaking, and he will soon know the best or the worst of
him. Let him watch him handling a wild, unbroken colt, and if he is
steadfast of purpose, just, brave, and true-hearted, it will all be
revealed; but if he lacks self-restraint, or is cowardly, shifty, or
mean-spirited, he will do well to avoid the test, for the horse will
betray him.
Jack's horse-breaking was a battle for supremacy of mind over mind, not
mind over matter a long course of careful training and schooling, in
which nothing was broken, but all bent to the control of a master. To him
no two horses were alike; carefully he studied their temperaments,
treating each horse according to its nature using the whip freely with
some, and with others not at all; coercing, coaxing, or humouring, as his
judgment directed.
