the valley
road and zigzags up the face of the east bench to a height from which
one may survey the whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through a
reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's hand, and to Mrs.
Laithe, who approached it from across the flat and studied it for the
first time as a practicable thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly
perpendicular; a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, an
angle of elevation that no rider could sustain.

Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled Cooney to a walk as
she neared the parting of the ways. Then, indecisively, she let the
bridle rein fall on his neck. The little horse loitered on, splashing
through the creek with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken
merely in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted where
the bench trail turned out. At the beginning of his intimacy with his
present rider he had adopted rushing tactics at this point, leaping at
the trail in a fine pretense that no other way could have been thought
of, and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden pull brought him
about and into the valley road. For that was a road that led nowhere,
since it led away from his home. Day after day he had played this game,
seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he would win. Day after
day had he exercised all his powers of astonished protest when the
frustrating tug was felt. But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken
the rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that on this day
Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevitable that one should be
whirled back into the broad, foolish way, one might save effort by
omitting that first futile rush; one might stop and let evil come.
Cooney stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism.

His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; wishing he had rushed
the trail as always before. She felt the need of every excuse for daring
the hazards of that climb. Cooney waited--and waited--morosely
anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to guide him
properly by pressing a rein across his neck. The shock was delayed.
Cooney thrilled, aspiring joyously. He waited still another uncertain
moment, bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing of
breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all the world, with an
energy of scurrying hoofs that confined his rider's attention wholly to
keeping her seat. She hardly dared look dow