The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



then goes ahead a little slower. It is evident 

 she thinks she may have been going a little 

 too fast on this first run round. He catches 

 her up in a jiffey, and moves along with his 

 tail aloft, prancing. Then she makes a pretty 

 sharp turn away from him, which he did not 

 expect, and so overshoots the mark, but he 

 joins her again, after a wide sweep. She goes 

 through this manoeuvre again, and this time 

 the colt is more ready and the sweep is not so 

 wide. She is taking him on quite a long trail 

 through the field, which has little hills and 

 dales in it, but at first she takes care to run 

 along the contours and not across them. The 

 mare increases her pace to a slow canter and 

 makes more sharp turns. It is wonderful how 

 weU the little chap keeps up, and without 

 any undue exertion. 



There is a large pond in the field, formed 

 by a high dam thrown across a valley ; and 

 although the top of the dam is her favourite 

 short cut, she carefully avoids it, and, to keep 

 him out of harm's way, makes a long detour 

 around the pond. They do a mile or more in 

 this winding course without stopping, and 

 they visit every part of the field. Then the 

 mare now does a rather remarkable thing ; 

 she makes her first stop at a long wire fence, 

 with the clear object of drawing the foal's 

 special attention to it. Without even looking 

 at the fence he proposes to utilise the halt 



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