1 6 Our Noblest Friend, The Horse 



returns, through flames, over tottering floors, and 

 under trembhng walls ; and there he expires — 

 firmly convinced that there is no hope, no shelter 

 but this. 



It is for the very same reason that, if a horse is 

 blindfolded, he may be led from a burning building. 

 The loss of vision changes his one idea — and he 

 becomes occupied with another. The writer got a 

 horse from a flaming stable, after repeated and vain 

 efforts to move him had been made, by simply tying 

 up a leg, and forcing him to hop along on three. 

 He came at once, and so he would have done had 

 any one of dozens of other means been used to 

 change the current of his thought. 



It is thus with the balky animal, the one who 

 shies — if we will but distract his attention from the 

 one idea upon wdiich his mind is concentrated, forth- 

 with we may do with him as we will. Some of these 

 measures may be painful or uncomfortable, but need 

 never be brutal or abusive. The original idea com- 

 pels resistance, but another cunningly substituted 

 becomes in turn overpowering, and the animal is 



