218 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



as the golden liair of a blonde, fell in a great spray 

 on either flank, and her head curved to its proud- 

 est arch, pace around me with that high action 

 and springing step peculiar to the thoroughbred. 

 Then like a flash, dropping her brush and laying 

 back her ears, and stretching her nose straight out, 

 she would speed away with that quick, nervous, 

 low-lying action which marks the rush of racers, 

 when, side by side, and nose to nose, lapping each 

 other, with the roar of cheers on either hand and 

 along the seats above them, they come straining up 

 the home stretch. Eetuming from one of these ar- 

 rowy flights, she would come curvetting back, now 

 pacing sidewise, as on parade, now dashing her 

 hind feet high into the air, and anon vavilting up 

 and springing through the air, with legs well under 

 her, as if in the act of taking a five-barred gate, 

 and, finally, would approach and stand hapj^y in 

 her reward, — my caress. 



"The war, at last, was over. Gulnare and I 

 were in at the deatli with Sheridan at the Five 

 Forks. Together Ave had shared the pageant at 

 Eichpaond and "Washington, and never had I seen 

 her in better spirits than on that day at the capi- 

 tal. It was a sight, indeed, to see her as she came 

 down Pennsylvania Avenue. If the triumphant 

 procession had been all in her honor and mine, 

 she could not have moved with greater grace and 

 pride. With dilating eye and tremulous ear, cease- 



