o do with new grass and springy turf, nor could he know that
Tim had similar longings. These thoughts each kept to himself. But if
Chieftain was of Norman blood, a horse whose noble sires had ranged
pasture and paddock free from rein or trace, Tim was a Doyle whose
father and grandfather had lived close to the good green sod, and had
done their toil in the open, with the cool and calm of the country to
soothe and revive them.

Of such delights as these both Chieftain and Tim had tasted scantily,
hurriedly, in youth; and for them, in the lapses of the daily grind,
both yearned, each after his own fashion.

And, each in his way, Tim and Chieftain were philosophers. As the years
had come and gone, toil-filled and uneventful, the character of the man
had ripened and mellowed, the disposition of the horse had settled and
sweetened.

In his earlier days Tim had been ready to smash a wheel or lose one, to
demand right of way with profane unction, and to back his word with
whip, fist, or bale-hook. But he had learned to yield an inch on
occasion and to use the soft word.

Chieftain, too, in his first years between the poles, had sometimes been
impatient with the untrained mates who from time to time joined the
team. He had taken part in mane-biting and trace-kicking, especially on
days when the loads were heavy and the flies thick, conditions which try
the best of horse tempers. But he had steadied down into a pole-horse
who could set an example that was worth more than all the six-foot
lashes ever tied to a whip-stock.

It was during the spring of Chieftain's eighth year with the company
that things really began to happen. First there came rheumatism to Tim.
Trucking uses up men as well as horses, you know. While it is the hard
work and the heavy feeding of oats which burn out the animal, it is
generally the exposure and the hard drinking which do for the men. Tim,
however, was always moderate in his use of liquor, so he lasted longer
than most drivers. But at one-and-forty the wearing of rain-soaked
clothes called for reprisal. One wet May morning, after vainly trying to
hobble about the stable, Tim, with a bottle of horse liniment under his
arm, gave it up and went back to his bunk.

Team No. 47 went out that day with a new driver, a cousin of the
stable-boss, who had never handled anything better than common,
light-weight express horses. How Chieftain did miss Tim those next few
days! The new man was slow at loading,