er favourite mare in the harness without also enduring
the spectacle of its being eaten alive.

Our leaders were joys. King being a polo pony and Milda a rabbit, they
rounded curves beautifully and darted ahead like coyotes out of the way
of the wheelers. Milda's besetting weakness was a frantic desire not to
have the lead-bar strike her hocks. When this happened, one of three
things occurred: either she sat down on the lead-bar, kicked it up in the
air until she got her back under it, or exploded in a straight-ahead,
harness-disrupting jump. Not until she carried the lead-bar clean away
and danced a break-down on it and the traces, did she behave decently.
Nakata and I made the repairs with good old-fashioned bale-rope, which is
stronger than wrought-iron any time, and we went on our way.

In the meantime I was learning--I shall not say to tool a
four-in-hand--but just simply to drive four horses. Now it is all right
enough to begin with four work-horses pulling a load of several tons. But
to begin with four light horses, all running, and a light rig that seems
to outrun them--well, when things happen they happen quickly. My
weakness was total ignorance. In particular, my fingers lacked training,
and I made the mistake of depending on my eyes to handle the reins. This
brought me up against a disastrous optical illusion. The bight of the
off head-line, being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line,
hung lower. In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook the
two lines. Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in order to
straighten the team, I would see the leaders swing abruptly around into a
jack-pole. Now for sensations of sheer impotence, nothing can compare
with a jack-pole, when the horrified driver beholds his leaders prancing
gaily up the road and his wheelers jogging steadily down the road, all at
the same time and all harnessed together and to the same rig.

I no longer jack-pole, and I don't mind admitting how I got out of the
habit. It was my eyes that enslaved my fingers into ill practices. So I
shut my eyes and let the fingers go it alone. To-day my fingers are
independent of my eyes and work automatically. I do not see what my
fingers do. They just do it. All I see is the satisfactory result.

Still we managed to get over the ground that first day--down sunny Sonoma
Valley to the old town of Sonoma, founded by General Vallejo as the
remotest outpost on the