nows exactly what his pony can do.

To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks dangerous in
the extreme. More than once I check myself, not without an effort, in
the act of resuming the command of my pony on passing the more dangerous
points in the journey. The time goes on; and no sign of an inhabited
dwelling looms through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I
find myself secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While
I am in this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black,
winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth time at
least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the
mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever
was foaled. I lose my presence of mind. At the critical moment before
the jump is taken, I am foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly
check the pony. He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if
he had been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets
twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist.

If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself well
off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his struggles to
rise, before I have completely extricated myself from him, the pony
kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it, his hoof strikes just where
the poisoned spear struck me in the past days of my service in India.
The old wound opens again--and there I lie bleeding on the barren
Shetland moor!

This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to breast
the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman to support.
I preserve my senses; and I am able to give the necessary directions
for bandaging the wound with the best materials which we have at our
disposal. To mount my pony again is simply out of the question. I must
remain where I am, with my traveling companion to look after me; and the
guide must trust his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to
which I can be removed.

Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion) takes our
"bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of my pocket-compass.
This done, he disappears in the mist, with the bridle hanging loose,
and the pony's nose to the ground, as before. I am left, under my young
friend's care, with a cloak to lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our
ponies composedly help themselves to such grass as they can find o