owever,
before I was interrupted by shouts and screams from that vicinity, and
on returning thither I found that Chu Chu, with the assistance of her
riata, had securely wound up two of my neighbors to the tree, where they
presented the appearance of early Christian martyrs. When I released
them it appeared that they had been attracted by Chu Chu's graces,
and had offered her overtures of affection, to which she had
characteristically rotated with this miserable result. I led her, with
some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure,
from whose fence I had previously removed several bars. Although the
space was wide enough to have admitted a troop of cavalry she affected
not to notice it, and managed to kick away part of another section on
entering. She resisted the stable for some time, but after carefully
examining it with her hoofs, and an affectedly meek outstretching of
her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the feed-box--without
looking at them--and was formally installed. All this while she had
resolutely ignored my presence. As I stood watching her she suddenly
stopped eating; the same reflective look came over her. "Surely I am not
mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is somewhere about here!" she
seemed to say, and shivered at the possibility.

It was probably this which made me confide my unreciprocated affection
to one of my neighbors--a man supposed to be an authority on horses, and
particularly of that wild species to which Chu Chu belonged. It was he
who, leaning over the edge of the stall where she was complacently and,
as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet lock
of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. "Ye see,
captain," he said with jaunty easiness, "hosses is like wimmen; ye don't
want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with THEM; a stiddy but
keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess
like this, to let her see who's master"--

We never clearly knew HOW it happened; but when I picked up my neighbor
from the doorway, amid the broken splinters of the stall rail, and a
quantity of oats that mysteriously filled his hair and pockets, Chu Chu
was found to have faced around the other way, and was contemplating her
forelegs, with her hind ones in the other stall. My neighbor spoke of
damages while he was in the stall, and of physical coercion when he
was out of it again. But here Chu Chu, in som