THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT
One crisp winter morning a party of us left New York to spend the week
end at the Lemon County Hunt Club. It was there I first met Sol, the
dean of Lemon County hunters and for eight seasons the winner, against
all comers, of the famous annual Lemon County Steeple Chase. At the
hurdles, whether in the great public set events or in private contests,
Sol was never beaten, while in the drag hunts it was seldom indeed he
was not close up on the hounds from "throw-in" to "worry."
To the Club Mews he had come under the tragic name of Avenger, but such
was the marvellous equine wisdom he displayed that at the finish of his
third hunt in Lemon County, he was rechristened Solomon by his new
owner--soon shortened to Sol for tighter fit among sulphurous hunt
expletives. At that night's dinner Sol and his deeds were the chief
topic of conversation and also its principal toast. And why not, when
no hunting stable in the world holds a horse in all respects his equal?
Why not toast a horse now twenty-six years old who has missed no run of
the Lemon County hounds for the last eight years, never for a single
hunting-day off his feed or legs? Why not toast a horse that takes
ordinary timber in his stride and eats up the stiffest stone walls for
eight full hunting seasons without a single fall? Why not toast a
horse with the prescience and generalship of a Napoleon, a horse who
drives straight at all obstacles in a fair field, but who never
imperils his rider's head beneath over-hanging boughs; who foresees and
evades the "blind ditches" and other perils lurking behind hedges and
walls and who lands as steady and safe on ice as he takes off out of
muck? Why not toast this venerable but still indomitable King of
Hunters?
The next morning it was my privilege to meet him. In midwinter, he of
course was not in condition. Descriptions of his weird physique, and
jests over his grotesquely large and ill-shaped head, made by half a
dozen voluble huntsmen over post-prandial bottles, I thought had
prepared me against surprise. Certainly they had described such a
horse as I had never seen.
But having come to the door of his box, I was astounded to see
slouching lazily in a corner with eyes closed, the nigh hip dropped
low, a horse that at first glance appeared to be Don Quixote's
Rosinante reincarnate, a gigantic "crow-bait" with a head as long and
coarse as an eighteen-hand mule's, an under lip pendulous as a camel's
dropping ears nearly long enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with
such an ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of face as would
have enabled his head to supply the third of a nine-foot circle, a face
curved as a scimitar and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions
it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman-nosed equine head
the maddest fancy could conceive.
Slapped lightly on the quarter, Sol was instantly transformed.
Eyes out of which shone wisdom preternatural in a horse, opened and
looked down upon us with the calm questioning reproach one might expect
from a rude awakening of the Sphinx; then the tall ears straightened
and the great bulk rose to the full majesty of its seventeen hands; and
while slats, hip bones, and shoulder blades were distressingly
prominent, a glance got the full story of Sol's wonderful deeds and
matchless record for safe, sure work.
With massive, low-sloping shoulders, tremendous quarters,
exceptionally short of cannon bone and long from hock to stifle as a
greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the
withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the
throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best
points of a thoroughbred hunter that make for speed, jumping ability,
and endurance.
And as he so stood, a flea-bitten, speckled white in color, he looked
like a section out of the main snowy range of the Rocky Mountains: the
two wide-set ears representing the Spanish Peaks; his sloping neck
their northern declivity; his high withers, sharply outlined vertebrae,
and towering quarters the serrated range crest; his banged tail a
glacier reaching down toward its moraine!
Sol needed exercise, and that afternoon I was permitted the privilege
of riding him. Mounted from a chair and settled in the saddle, I felt
as if I must surely be bestriding St. Patrick's Cathedral. But at a
shake of the reins the parallel ceased. His pasterns were supple as an
Arab four-year-old's, his muscles steel springs.
Myself quite as gray as Sol and, relatively, of about the same age, as
lives of men and horses go, we early fell into a mutual sympathy that
soon ripened into a fast friendship. At Christmas I returned to the
Club to spend holiday week, in fact sought the invitation to be with
Sol. Every day we went out together, Sol and I, morning and afternoon.
Bright, warm, open winter days, so soon as the spin he loved was
finished, I slid off him, slipped the bit from his mouth (leaving
head-stall hanging about his neck), and left him free to nibble the
juicy green grasses of some woodland glade and, between nibble times,
to spin me yarns of his experiences. For the subtle sympathy that
existed between us--sprung of our trust in one another and sublimated
in the heat of our mutual affection had sharpened our perceptions until
intellectual inter-communication became possible to us. I know Sol
understood all I told him, and I don't think I misunderstood much he
told me. So here is his tale, as nearly as I can recall it.
"Ye know I'm Irish, and proud of it. It's there they knew best how to
make and condition an able hunter. No pamperin', softenin' idleness in
box stalls or fat pastures, or light road-joggin', goes in Ireland
between huntin' seasons. It's muscle and wind we need at our trade in
Ireland, and neither can be more than half diviloped in the few weeks'
light conditionin' work that all English and most American
cross-country riders give their hunters. Steady gruellin' work is what
it takes to toughen sinews and expand lungs, and it's the Irish
huntsman that knows it. So between seasons we drag the ploughs and
pull the wains, toil at the rudest farm tasks, and thus are kept in
condition on a day's notice to make the run or take the jump of our
lives.
"Humiliatin'? Hardly, when we find it gives us strength and staying
power to lead the best the shires can send against us: they've neither
power nor stomach to take Irish stone and timber.
"'It's a royal line of blood, his,' I've often heard Sir Patrick say;
'a clean strain of the best for a hundred years, by records of me own
family. His head? There was never a freak in the line till he came;
and where the divil and by what misbegotten luck he came by it is the
mystery of Roscommon. And it's by that same token we call him Avenger,
for no sneerin' stranger ever hunted with him that didn't get the
divil's own peltin' with clods off his handy Irish heels.'
"And the head groom had it from the butler and passed it on to me that
the old Master of the Roscommon Hounds was ever swearin' over his third
bottle, of hunt nights, when I was no more than a five-year-old and the
youngsters would be fleerin' at Sir Pat over the shape of me head:
"'Faith, an' it's Avenger's head ye don't like, lads, is it? By the
powers o' the holy Virgin but it's me pity ye have that none of ye can
show the likes in your stables. By the gray mare that broke King
Charlie's neck, it's the head of him holds brains enough to distinguish
ten average hunters, brains no ordinary brain pan could hold; an' it's
a brain-box shape of a shot sock makin' the disfigurin' hump below his
eyes. It's a four-legged gineral is Avenger, with the cunnin'
foresight of a Bonaparte and the cool judgment of a Wellington.'
"Ah! but they were happy days on the old sod, buckin' timber, flyin'
over brooks, stretchin' over stone or lightin' light as bird atop of
walls too broad to carry and springin' on, with a good light-handed man
up that knew his work and left ye free to do yours! And a sad night it
was for me when Sir Pat, stripped by years of gambling of all he owned
but the clothes he stood in and me, staked and lost me to a hunt
visitor from Quebec!
"I was a youngster then, only a nine-year-old, but I'll niver forget
the two weeks' run from Queenstown to Quebec whereon hunting tables
were reversed and I became the rider and the ship me mount, across
country the roughest hunter ever lived through: niver a moment of easy
flat goin', but an endless series of gigantic leaps that nigh jouted me
teeth loose, churned me insides till they wouldn't even hold dry feed,
and gave me more of a taste than I liked of what I had been givin'
Roscommon huntsmen over lane side wall jumps--a rise and a jolt, a rise
and a jolt, till it was wonderin' I was the ears were not shaken from
me head.
"Humiliation? It was there at Quebec I got it! In old Roscommon
usually it was lords and ladies rode me of hunt days, men and women
bred to the game as I meself was.
"But at Quebec, the best--and I had the best--were beefy members of
their dinkey colonial Government or fussy, timid barristers I had to
carry on me mouth. Seldom it was I carried a good pair of hands and a
cool head in me nine years' runnin' with the Quebec and Montreal
hounds. And lucky the same was for me, for it forced me to take the
bit in me teeth, rely on meself, and regard me rider no more than if he
were a sack of flour: I jist had it to do to save me own legs and me
rider's neck, for to run by their reinin' and pullin' would have
brought us a cropper at about two out of every three obstacles. Faith,
and I believe it's an honest leaper's luck I've always had with me,
anyway, for me Quebec work was jist what I needed to train me for an
honorable finish with the Lemon County Yankees.
"One Autumn night years ago, when I was eighteen, a clever young Yankee
visitor from New York appeared at our club. For two days I watched his
work on other mounts, and liked it. He was good as any two-legged
product of the old sod itself, a handsome youngster a bit heavier than
Sir Pat, a reckless, deep drinkin', hard swearin', straight ridin'
sort, but with a head and hands ye knew in a minute ye could trust, by
name Jack Lounsend. The third hunt after his arrival, it was me
delight to carry him, and for the first time in years to allow me rider
his will of me. And you can bet your stud and gear, I gave him the
best I had, for the sheer love of him, and him so near the likes of me
dear Sir Pat.
"Nor was me work to go unvalued, for, to me great delight, he bought me
and brought me to the States--straight away to Lemon County--along with
two of me huntmates he fancied. And a sweet country I found this same
Lemon County, with timber and stone nigh as stiff, and sod as sound as
old Roscommon's own.
"But troubles lay ahead of me I'd not foreseen. Instead of goin' into
Jack's private string, as I'd hoped, the early record I made for close
finishes and safe, sure work made me wanted by the chief patron of the
hunt, a New York multi-railroad-aire with a well diviloped habit of
gettin' everything he goes after. So, while I venture to believe Jack
hated to part with me, the patron got me.
"And a good man up the patron himself proved, one I'd always be proud
enough to carry; but, as Jack used to say, the hell of it was the Lemon
County Hunt numbered more bunglin' duffers than straight riders, the
sort a youngster or a hot-head would be sure to kill.
"So when, as often happened, the patron was busy with faster runs and a
hotter 'worry' than our hunt afforded, it frequently fell to me lot to
carry the half-broke of all ages, seldom a one bridle wise to our game,
as sure to pull me at the take-off of a leap as to give me me head on a
run through heavy mud, the sort no horse could carry and finish
dacently with except by takin' the bit in his teeth and himself makin'
the runnin'. And even so, it was a tough task fightin' their rotten
heavy hands and loose seat! But, by the glory of old Roscommon, never
once have I been down in me eight years with the Lemons!
"Once, to be sure, on me first run, by the way, I slashed into one of
your brutal wire fences, the first I'd ever seen--looked a filmy thing
you could smash right through--caught a shoe in it, and nigh wrenched a
shoulder blade in two. Sure, I never lost me feet, but it laid me up a
few days; and you can gamble any odds you like no wire has ever caught
me since; and, more, that I now hold record as the only horse in the
County that takes wire as readily as timber, where it's
necessary--though sure it is I'll dodge for timber every time where I
won't lose too much in place.
"Down they come to Lemon County, a lot of those New York beauties, men
and women, togged out so properly you'd think they'd spent their whole
lives in the huntin' field; but at the first obstacle you'd see their
faces go white as their stocks, and then all over you they'd ride from
tail to ears, their arms sawin' at your mouth fit to rip your under jaw
off, like they thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for.
And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds
were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the
riders' red coats noddin' poppies; back till only faint echoes reached
them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; back
for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of,--for rider never
lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor
was fence ever built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe
on it.
"Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself couldn't hold me,
whether it's the short, sharp war-cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep
bell-notes of these Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a
mournful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it's the faster Irish hounds that
make the grandest runnin', but it's the deep-throated mellow chorus of
a Yankee pack I love best to hear.
"_Nouveaux riches_, whatever kind of bounders that spells, is what Bob
Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers New York sends us; and whenever the
patron is out or Jack has his way, it's niver one of them I'm disgraced
with.
"Sometimes it's me good old Jack up; sometimes hard swearin', straight
goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light
and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless
as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a
five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a
cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the
best and freshest can take; sometimes it's Priest, that with the
language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he'll hold a tired one to
but ill desarves the holy name he wears; and sometimes--my happiest
times--it's a daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and the
nerve and seat of a veteran.
"Horse or human, it's blood that tells, every time, me word for that.
Be they old or young, you can niver mistake it. Can't stop anything
with good blood in it--gallops straight, takes timber in its stride,
and finishes smartly every time. Know it may not, but it balks at
nothing, sets its teeth and drives ahead till it learns.
"And perhaps that wasn't driven well home on me last Fall!"
"Out to us came a little woman, a scant ninety-pounder I should say, so
frail she wouldn't look safe in a drag, and a good bit away on the off
side of middle age; but the mouth of her had a set that showed she'd
never run off the bit in her life, and her eye--my eye! but she had an
eye, did that woman. And it was hell-bent to hunt she was, bound to
follow the bounds, though all she knew of a saddle came of
five-mile-an-hour jogs along town park bridle paths, and all her hands
looked fit for was holdin' a spaniel.
"Well, it was Lory and Priest took her on, turn about, usually me that
carried her, and it was break her slender little neck I thought the
divils would in spite of me. Took her at everything and spared her
nowhere, bowled her along across meadow and furrow, over water, timber,
and walls, like she was a lusty five-year-old, and all the time a
guyin' her in a way to take the heart out of anything but a
thoroughbred. 'Don't mind the fence!' Lory would sing out, 'if you get
a fall, just throw your legs in the air and keep kickin' to show you're
not dead; we never want to stop for any but the dead on this hunt.'
And smash on my quarters would come her crop, and on we'd go!
"Again, when we'd be nearin' a fence across which two were scramblin'
up from croppers, Lory would brace her with: 'Don't git scared at that
smoke across the fence; it's nothin' but the boys that couldn't get
over burnin' up their chance of salvation!' And into me slats her
little heel would sock the steel, and high over the timber I'd lift her
for sheer joy of the nerve of her!
"But it was not always me that had her. One day I saw a cold-blood
give her a fall you'd think would smash the tiny little thing into
bran; landed so low on a ditch bank he couldn't gather, and up over his
head she flew and on till I thought she was for takin' the next wall by
her lonesome. And when finally she hit the ground it was to so near
bury herself among soft furrows that it looked for a second as if she'd
taken earth like any other wily old fox tired of the runnin'.
"But tired? She? Not on your bran mash! Up she springs like a
yearlin' and asks Lory is her hat on straight--which it was, straight
up and down over her nigh ear. 'Oh, damn your hat,' answers Lory;
'give us your foot for a mount if you're not rattled. Why, next year
you'll be showin' your friends holes in the ground on this hunt course
you've dug with your own head!' And up it was for her and away again
on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods make it a shame
they're ever called hunters. Fall the best must, one day or another;
but while the thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his feet
and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider time to fall free
if down he must go, the cold-blood falls loose and flabby as an empty
sack, and he and his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked
them off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a true
thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up on cold or hot blood,
along she'd drive at anything those two hare-brained dare-devils would
point her at, spur diggin', crop splashin'!
"Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times the lads are always
larkin' and puttin' up games on each other out of the stock of
divilment that won't keep till the next run, each never quite so happy
as when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a wager.
"One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's place.
"'Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up to?' sings out Lory to
Raven, the minute we stopped at his porch.
"'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some help of you.'
"'Give it a name,' says Lory.
"'Easy,' says Raven; 'the master's got a new fad--crazy to mount the
hunt on white horses. I've old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy
white ones for the two whips, but where to get a white mount for Jack
stumps us. Jogged over to see if you could help us out.'
"Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west across his spring
lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his eye, and followin' the line of
his glance, there slouchin' in a fence corner I saw Lory's old white
work-mare, Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the little
Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower for hers. I'd heard Lory
say she was eighteen years old and that once she was gray, but now
she's white as a first snow-fall.
"'How would old gray Molly do, Raven?' presently asks Lory.
"'Do? Has she ever hunted?' asks Raven.
"'Divil a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' says Lory; 'never
had a saddle on, as far as I know, but she has the quarters and low
sloping shoulders of a born jumper, and it's you must admit it. Let's
have a look at her.'
"So out across the spring lot the three of us went, to the corner where
Molly was dozin'. And true for Lory it was, the old lady had fine
points; when lightly slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a
good bit of action.
"'She's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven; 'where did you get
her, Lory?'
"'Had her twelve years,' says Lory; 'brought her on from my Wyoming
ranch; she and a skullful of experience and a heartful of
disappointment made up about all two bad winters left of my ranch
investments. The freight on her made her look more like a back-set
than an asset, but she was a link of the old life I couldn't leave.'
"'Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, 'and if she'll run a bit and
jump, we may have some fun passin' her up to Jack.'
"So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled and mounts, and I
hope never to have another rub-down if she didn't gallop on like she'd
never done anything else--stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground
fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a fair pace. Then we
went into a narrow lane and I gave her a lead over some low bars, and
here came game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences and her
were old stable-mates.
"'Well, I _will_ be damned,' says Raven; 'she's a hoary wonder. Give
her a week of handlin' and trim her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at
a stiff price; he's so bent on his fad, he'll take a chance on her age.'
"And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laughter in the house
with them, while I began tippin' Molly a few useful points at the game
as soon as the groom left us in adjoinin' stalls.
"Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the hunt-club mews, and if
I'd not been on to their mischievous plot, I'll be fired if I'd known
her. It was a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, hogged
her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her hoofs, groomed, fed up,
and conditioned her, and (I do believe) polished her yellow old fangs,
till she looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see.
"And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and stalled, into an empty
box alongside of me slips Lory with Tom, the best whip and seat of our
hunt, and says Lory: 'You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, Tom.'
"'Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; 'hall in the day's work.'
"'Well, if you'll give the old gray mare a week's practice at wall and
timber, gettin' out early when none but the sun and the pair of you are
yet up, I'll give you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my place
the other day. But mind, it's your neck she may break at the first
wall, for I've niver taken her over anything much higher than a pig
sty.'
"'Right-o, sir,' says Tom; 'an' there's any jump in the old girl, I'll
git it out of 'er.'
"The next Saturday afternoon, the biggest meet of the season, up rides
that divil of a Lory on Molly, him in a brand-new suit of ridin' togs
and her heavy-curbed and martingaled like she was a wild four-year-old,
the pair lookin' so fine I scarce knew the man or Raven the mare.
"'Hi, there, Lory!' says Raven; 'wherever did you get the corkin' white
un?'
"'Sh-h-h! you damn fool,' says Lory.
"'The hell you say!' whispers Raven, reins aside, chucklin' low to the
two of us, and with a knee-press which I knew meant, 'Sol, jist you
watch 'em!'
"And we were no more than turned about when up rides the master, Jack,
both ears pointin' Molly, and says:
"'Good-looker you have there, Lory. New purchase?
"'No, indeed,' says Lory; 'old hunter I've had some years; brought her
on from the West; just up off grass and not quite prime yet; guess
she'll finish, though.
"Think of it--the nerve of the divil--and him knowin' she was more
likely to finish at the first fence than ever to reach the check. For
the day's course was a full ten-mile run, and a check was laid half-way
for a blow or a change of mounts.
"Presently the hounds opened at the 'throw-in,' an Irish pack it takes
near a steeplechase pace to stay with, and we were off on as stiff a
course as even Lemon County can show. And a holy miracle was Lory's
ridin' that day. For nigh four miles he held tight behind two duffers
who, while up on top-notchers, pulled their mounts so heavily that they
took a top rail off nearly every fence they rose to and swerved for low
wall-gaps, till he'd got Molly's nerves up a bit. Then, takin' a
chance on the last mile, Lory threw crop and spur into her and raced
straight ahead, liftin' her over wall and timber to try the best, until
close up on Jack. Just then Jack turned and watched them, just as they
were approachin' a heavy four-foot jump, a broad stone wall and ditch.
Sure, I thought it was all up with Lory, but at it he hurled her, and
I'll be curbed if she didn't take it as cleverly as I could.
"Old Molly finished third at the check, but at the expense of a pair of
badly torn and bleedin' knees, got scrapin' over stone and wood, which
that rascal of a Lory hid by swervin' to a white clay bank and
plasterin' her wounds with the clay, and then she was led away by his
groom.
"Joggin' back from the 'worry' that evenin', Jack lay tight in Lory's
flank till Lory had consented, apparently with great reluctance, to
sell him Molly for five hundred dollars.
"The very next week, Jack, Raven, and the two whips turned out on white
hunters, Jack of course upon Molly and happy over the successful
workin' out of his fad. But good old Jack's happiness was short-lived,
for after the 'throw-in' he was not seen again of the hunt that day,
The first fence Molly negotiated in fine style, but at the second she
came a terrible cropper that badly jolted Jack and knocked every last
ounce of heart out of her, cowed her so completely that she'd be in
that same meadow yet if there'd not been a pair of bars to lead her
through, and divil a man was ever found could make her try another jump.
"Great was the quiet fun of Lory and Raven, though Lory's lasted little
longer than Jack's joy of his white mount. Of course Jack was too game
to let on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen a rowel
for Lory.
"And the rankest wonder it was Lory niver saw it till Jack had him
raked from flank to shoulder--just stood and took it without a blink,
like a donkey takes a lash.
"Within a week of Molly's downfall Lory was out on me one day, when up
rides Jack and says:
"'There's a splendid hunter in me stable I want ye to have, Lory. Got
more than I can keep, and your stable must be a bit shy since you
parted with the white mare. He's the bay seventeen-hander in the Irish
lot. Stands me over a thousand, but you can have him at your own
price; don't want the hardest, straightest rider of the hunt shy of fit
meat and bone to carry him.'
"Belikes it was the blarney caught him, but anyway Lory buried his
muzzle in Jack's pail till he could see nothin' but what Jack said it
held, and took the bay at six hundred dollars just on a casual lookover.
"It was a good action, a grand jumpin' form, and rare pace the bay
showed on a short try-out that afternoon, so much so I overheard Lory
tellin' himself, when he was after dismounting just outside me box:
'Gad! but ain't old Jack easy money!'
"But when Lory and the bay showed up at the next day's meet, I noticed
the bay's ears layin' back or workin' in a way to tell any but a blind
one it was dirty mischief he was plannin'. Nor was he long playin' it.
For about a third of the run the bay raced like a steeplechaser tight
on the heels of the hounds, leadin' even the master, for Lory could no
more hold him than his own glee at the grand way they were takin' gates
and walls. But suddenly that bay divil's-spawn swerves from the
course, dashes up and stops bang broadside against a barn; and there,
with ears laid back tight to his head and muzzle half upturned, for
four mortal hours the bay held Lory's off leg jammed so tight against
the barn that, rowel and crop-cut hard as he might, the only thing Lory
was able to free was such a flow of language, it was a holy wonder
Providence didn't fire the barn and burn up the pair of them.
"And as Jack passed them I heard the divil sing not [Transcriber's
note: out?]: 'Ha! Ha! Lory! it was the gray mare wanted to jump but
couldn't, and it's the bay can jump but won't! It's an "oh hell!" for
you and a "ha! ha!" for me this time!'
"Which, while they're still fast friends, was the last word ever passed
between them on the subject of the funker and the balker."