from heart to head deluging his sensitive brain with fiery
currents, driving him into frenzy or blinding him with fear; but
touches, soft and gentle as a woman's caressing words, and oats given
from the open palm, and unfailing kindness, were the means I used to
'subjugate' him. Sweet subjugation, both to him who subdues and to him
who yields! The wild, unmannerly, and unmanageable colt, the fear of
horsemen the country round, finding in you not an enemy, but a friend,
receiving his daily food from you, and all those little 'nothings' which
go as far with a horse as a woman, to win and retain affection, grows
to look upon you as his protector and friend, and testifies in countless
ways his fondness for you. So when I saw this horse, with action so
free and motion so graceful, amid that storm of bullets, my heart
involuntarily went out to her, and my feelings rose higher and higher at
every leap she took from amid the whirlwind of fire and lead. And as she
plunged at last over a little hillock out of range and came careering
toward me as only a riderless horse might come, her head flung wildly
from side to side, her nostrils widely spread, her flank and shoulders
flecked with foam, her eye dilating, I forgot my wound and all the wild
roar of battle, and, lifting myself involuntarily to a sitting posture
as she swept grandly by, gave her a ringing cheer.

"Perhaps in the sound of a human voice of happy mood amid the awful din
she recognized a resemblance to the voice of him whose blood moistened
her shoulders and was even yet dripping from saddle and housings. Be
that as it may, no sooner had my voice sounded than she flung her head
with a proud upward movement into the air, swerved sharply to the left,
neighed as she might to a master at morning from her stall, and came
trotting directly up to where I lay, and, pausing, looked down upon
me as it were in compassion. I spoke again, and stretched out my hand
caressingly. She pricked her ears, took a step forward and lowered her
nose until it came in contact with my palm. Never did I fondle anything
more tenderly, never did I see an animal which seemed to so court and
appreciate human tenderness as that beautiful mare. I say 'beautiful.'
No other word might describe her. Never will her image fade from my
memory while memory lasts.

"In weight she might have turned, when well conditioned, nine hundred
and fifty pounds. In color she was a dark chestnut, with a velvety depth
a