cantle. "You will have to practise presently putting your hands on the
saddle and vaulting into it. Half a minute in mounting may make all the
difference between getting away and being rubbed out. When you see the
red-skins coming yelling down on you fifty yards away, and your horse is
jumping about as scared as you are, it is not an easy matter to get on
to its back if you have got to put your foot in the stirrup first. You
have got to learn to chuck yourself straight into your seat whether you
are standing still or both on the run. There, how do you feel now?"

"I feel regularly wedged into the saddle."

"That is right. I will take up the stirrups a hole, then you will get
your knees firmer against the blanket. It is better to learn to ride
without it, even if you do get chucked off a few times, but as we start
to-morrow you have no time for that. In a few days, when you get at home
in the saddle, we will take off the blanket, and you have got to learn
to hold on by your knees and by the balance of your body. Now we will be
moving on."

As soon as the reins were slackened the horses started together at an
easy canter.

"That is their pace," Jerry said. "Except on a very long journey, when
he has got squaws and baggage with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk,
and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don't
sit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steady
grip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, just
giving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship when
vessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took this
way because I knew it was the line he would come back by--and, by gosh,