THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 149 



if she could and hold me up in a corner until she 

 had extracted her percentage from the full pans. 

 If necessity compelled me to stoop in her presence 

 her greatest delight was to nibble the back of my 

 neck. Of course the unknowing told me again and 

 again that some day she would bite me, but equally 

 of course she never did. Few horses are naturally 

 vicious, and even Jeff's detestable traits were un- 

 doubtedly due as much to ill treatment in youth as 

 to a bad strain in his blood. Did space permit more 

 than one amusing anecdote could be related con- 

 cerning Jeff's hatred of Nina. With all her tricks 

 Nina was a lady — loyal and true, never failing a 

 friend — but in Jeff the cur streak predominated 

 over the good in him. All efforts to induce him to 

 pull a wagon or buggy with Nina failed; he would 

 put us to any inconvenience and the poor young 

 Nina to the severest pulling tests rather than pull 

 with her; he was against her from the first hour 

 she stood on four feet. So when the mare was old 

 enough for regular duty I disposed of him. But 

 not before a visiting kinsman had, under extreme 

 provocation, tested the old horse to the limit after 

 Nina, hitched with him, had been obliged to pull 

 the wagon home alone — a rigid try-out for a colt, 

 to which she responded nobly. 



"The old brute!" exclaimed my kinsman, after 

 a long absence with Jeff. "I couldn't get a balk out 

 of him, single or double, with all kinds of horses, 

 and yet look at the way he acted this morning with 

 Nina ! He simply does not intend to work with her, 



