her good points: she was an excellent weight-
carrier; took good care of her pack that it never
scraped nor bumped; knew all about trails, the
possibilities of short cuts, the best way of easing herself
downhill; kept fat and healthy in districts where
grew next to no feed at all; was past-mistress in the
picking of routes through a trailless country. Her
endurance was marvelous; her intelligence equally
so. In fact too great intelligence perhaps accounted
for most of her defects. She thought too much for
herself; she made up opinions about people; she
speculated on just how far each member of the party,
man or beast, would stand imposition, and tried
conclusions with each to test the accuracy of her
speculations; she obstinately insisted on her own way in
going up and down hill,--a way well enough for
Dinkey, perhaps, but hazardous to the other less skillful
animals who naturally would follow her lead. If
she did condescend to do things according to your
ideas, it was with a mental reservation. You caught
her sardonic eye fixed on you contemptuously. You
felt at once that she knew another method, a much
better method, with which yours compared most
unfavorably. "I'd like to kick you in the stomach,"
Wes used to say; "you know too much for a horse!"

If one of the horses bucked under the pack, Dinkey
deliberately tried to stampede the others--and
generally succeeded. She invariably led them off
whenever she could escape her picket-rope. In