After that, in orderly succession the rest followed: toleration of
handling, reining, mouthing, leading on foot, and on horseback and in due
time saddling and mounting. One thing at a time and nothing new until
the old was so perfected that when all was ready for the mounting from a
spectacular point of view the mounting was generally disappointing. Just
a little rearing and curvetting, then a quiet, trusting acceptance of
this new order of things.
Half a dozen horses were in hand at once, and, as with children at
school, some quickly got ahead of the others, and every day the interest
grew keener and keener in the individual character of the horses. At the
end of a week Jack announced that he was "going to catch the brown colt,"
next day. "It'll be worth seeing," he said; and from the Quiet Stockman
that was looked upon as a very pressing invitation.
From the day of the draughting he had ceased altogether to avoid me, and
in the days that followed had gradually realised that a horse could be
more to a woman than a means of locomotion; and now no longer drew the
line at conversations.
When we went up to the yards in the morning, the brown colt was in a
small yard by itself, and Jack was waiting at the gate, ready for its
"catching."
With a laugh at the wild rush with which the colt avoided him, he shut
himself into the yard with it, and moved quietly about, sometimes towards
it and sometimes from it; at times standing still and looking it over,
and at other times throwing a rope or sack carelessly down, waiting until
his presence had become familiar, and the colt had learned that there was
nothing to fear from it.
