The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



to you ; so that you can rub his back and 

 flanks with the whip and occasionally touch 

 his neck with your fingers. The finger touches 

 at first should be as light as possible, and 

 infrequent. It is a great concession on the 

 part of the wild horse to allow you to touch 

 him at all, and you must give him time to think 

 about it and consider whether any outrage is 

 intended, or not. With the first fight touches, 

 he won't be sure whether anything was in- 

 tended or not, but, as they go on without 

 hurting him in any way, he will conclude that 

 he has no reason to object. 



Now any horse, when he comes up from 

 grass, has a more or less itchy skin, and the 

 skin of a wild horse, who has always from 

 a foal been in the open, mil be more so. From 

 the fight touches proceed to fight rubs, and 

 watch his eyes and ears. As long as his ears 

 are forward, aU is well. Half-way down the 

 neck is the best place to begin to rub with 

 more pressure. If he likes it he will keep his 

 ears forward ; if he is not sure, one ear will be 

 forward and the other a bit back ; if he doesn't 

 like it, both ears will be momentarily brought 

 back, with just a gleam of white in the eye. 

 But he has suffered many things at your hands, 

 which at first he hardly approved but turned 

 out better than he expected, so that, even on 

 this mighty question of the actual touch of the 

 biped, he is inclined to risk consent, and 



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