ately-viciously pointed ears as my
Outlaw. She indicated Maid's exquisitely thin shinbone. I measured the
Outlaw's. It was equally thin, although, I insinuated, possibly more
durable. This stabbed Charmian's pride. Of course her near-thoroughbred
Maid, carrying the blood of "old" Lexington, Morella, and a streak of the
super-enduring Morgan, could run, walk, and work my unregistered Outlaw
into the ground; and that was the very precise reason why such a paragon
of a saddle animal should not be degraded by harness.

So it was that Charmian remained obdurate, until, one day, I got her
behind the Outlaw for a forty-mile drive. For every inch of those forty
miles the Outlaw kicked and jumped, in between the kicks and jumps
finding time and space in which to seize its team-mate by the back of the
neck and attempt to drag it to the ground. Another trick the Outlaw
developed during that drive was suddenly to turn at right angles in the
traces and endeavour to butt its team-mate over the grade. Reluctantly
and nobly did Charmian give in and consent to the use of Maid. The
Outlaw's shoes were pulled off, and she was turned out on range.

Finally, the four horses were hooked to the rig--a light Studebaker trap.
With two hours and a half of practice, in which the excitement was not
abated by several jack-poles and numerous kicking matches, I announced
myself as ready for the start. Came the morning, and Prince, who was to
have been a wheeler with Maid, showed up with a badly kicked shoulder. He
did not exactly show up; we had to find him, for he was unable to walk.
His leg swelled and continually swelled during the several days we waited
for him. Remained only the Outlaw. In from pasture she came, shoes were
nailed on, and she was harnessed into the wheel. Friends and relatives
strove to press accident policies on me, but Charmian climbed up
alongside, and Nakata got into the rear seat with the typewriter--Nakata,
who sailed cabin-boy on the Snark for two years and who had shown himself
afraid of nothing, not even of me and my amateur jamborees in
experimenting with new modes of locomotion. And we did very nicely,
thank you, especially after the first hour or so, during which time the
Outlaw had kicked about fifty various times, chiefly to the damage of her
own legs and the paintwork, and after she had bitten a couple of hundred
times, to the damage of Maid's neck and Charmian's temper. It was hard
enough to have h