and the manners of an archbishop. Tedda Gabler was a new
"trade,"with a reputation for vice which was really the result of
bad driving. She had one working gait, which she could hold till
further notice; a Roman nose; a large, prominent eye; a
shaving-brush of a tail; and an irritable temper. She took her
salt through her bridle; but the others trotted up nuzzling and
wickering for theirs, till we emptied it on the clean rocks.
They were all standing at ease, on three legs for the most part,
talking the ordinary gossip of the Back Pasture - about the
scarcity of water, and gaps in the fence, and how the early
windfalls tasted that season - when little Rick blew the last few
grains of his allowance into a crevice, and said:

"Hurry, boys! 'Might ha' knowed that livery plug would be
around."

We heard a clatter of hooves, and there climbed up from the
ravine below a fifty-center transient--a wall-eyed, yellow
frame-house of a horse, sent up to board from a livery-stable in
town, where they called him "The Lamb," and never let him out
except at night and to strangers. My companion, who knew and had
broken most of the horses, looked at the ragged hammer-head as it
rose, and said quietly:

"Ni-ice beast. Man-eater, if he gets the chance - see his eye.
Kicker, too - see his hocks. Western horse."

The animal lumbered up, snuffling and grunting. His feet showed
that he had not worked for weeks and weeks, and our creatures
drew together significantly.