ftain was guilty of no undue pride. Eight years in
the trucking business takes out of one all such nonsense. True, as a
three-year-old he had given himself some airs. There was small wonder
in that. He had been the boast of Keokuk County for a whole year. "We'll
show 'em what we can do in Indiana," the stockmaster had said as
Chieftain, his silver-white tail carefully done up in red flannel, was
led aboard the cars for shipment East.

They are not unused to ton-weight horses in the neighborhood of the
Bull's Head, where the great sales-stables are. Still, when Chieftain
was brought out, his fine dappled coat shining like frosted steel in the
sunlight, and his splendid tail, which had been done up in straw crimps
over night, rippling and waving behind him, there was a great craning of
necks among the buyers of heavy draughts.

"Gentlemen," the red-faced auctioneer had shouted, "here's a buster; one
of the kind you read about, wide as a wagon, with a leg on each corner.
There's a ton of him, a whole ton. Who'll start him at three hundred?
Why, he's as good as money in the bank."

That had been Chieftain's introduction to the metropolis. But the
triple-hitch is a great leveller. In single harness, even though one
does pull a load, there is chance for individuality. One may toss one's
head; aye, prance a bit on a nipping morning. But get between the poles
of a breast-team, with a horse on either side, and a twelve-ton load at
the trace-ends, and--well, one soon forgets such vanities as pride of
champion sires, and one learns not to prance.

In his eight years as inside horse of breast-team No. 47, Chieftain had
forgotten much about pedigree, but he had learned many other things. He
had come to know the precise moment when, in easing a heavy load down an
incline, it was safe to slacken away on the breeching and trot gently.
He could tell, merely by glancing at a rise in the roadway, whether a
slow, steady pull was needed, or if the time had come to stick in his
toe-calks and throw all of his two thousand pounds on the collar. He had
learned not to fret himself into a lather about strange noises, and not
to be over-particular as to the kind of company in which he found
himself working. Even though hitched up with a vicious Missouri Modoc on
one side and a raw, half collar-broken Kanuck on the other, he would do
his best to steady them down to the work. He had learned to stop at
crossings when a six-foot Broadway-squad offi