248 Next to the Ground 



mare's full sister, could never be weaned from 

 its foster mother, but kept sucking until it 

 was two years old, and had finally to be sold 

 on account of the propensity. The rogue 

 must have had an extra milk tooth, since his 

 new owner sold him to a drover because he 

 had got in a way of jumping into the clover 

 pasture and sucking every drop of milk from 

 a fine Jersey cow. 



He was a peculiar-colored beast pigeon- 

 blue, with pure flaxen mane and tail. The 

 drover sold him in the far south. Nothing 

 was known of him for a matter of ten years. 

 Then one morning, in the pasture where he 

 had grazed with his foster-mother and his 

 fellows, his first owner found the wreck and 

 remnant of a horse, blind in one eye, scarred 

 all over, so thin every bone showed through, 

 and so lame he could scarcely hobble upon 

 feet worn all round to the quick. But there 

 were flaxen hairs still waving in his shred of 

 tail and along his worn mane, and the coat 

 between the scars was pigeon blue, faded it is 

 true, but still unmistakable. Homing instinct, 

 the marvellous possession of all the brute crea- 

 tion, had brought the poor creature, aged and 

 worn out before his time, back to his birth- 

 place. Neither his career nor his wanderings 

 were ever traced, but from the condition of 

 his feet and the varied flotsam tangled in his 



