, they are friends and even equals in a way.
Neither is nearly so complete or powerful without the other; but
together--with body and spirit coming in living, throbbing contact--they
form the mightiest force in flesh and blood. Along the marvellous
electric currents of life there flashes from the man to the horse,
intelligence, feeling, purpose, even thought perhaps, so that to the
true horseman the centaur can never be wholly a fabulous creature.

One of the greatest things about this wonderful bond is that it reaches
all classes of riders and horses. Every good rider and every good horse
may rely upon it, no matter which of the many roads through life they
may travel together: all may trustingly rely upon it till one or both
shall have breasted "Sleep's dreamy hill." The horse of the fox-hunter,
of the race-rider, of the mounted soldier--every one of these noble
beasts has the fullest understanding of his rider's calling, and gives
it his completest sympathy with the greatest assistance in his power.
Who that has known the horse at his best can have failed to observe and
recognize and be moved by this fact? We have all seen that the hunter
hardly needs the touch of his rider's knee to be off like the wind and
to go without urging from whip or spur on to the end of the chase; never
flagging, no matter how long or hard it may be; never flinching at the
deepest ditch nor fouling at the highest fence; straining every sinew to
the last, for his rider's defeat is his own failure, his rider's success
his own victory. And we have all seen the gallant response of the
race-horse to every movement of his rider's body--a loyal gallantry that
ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two--now
one--flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow
warm with its brave showing of this magical bond. And above all, we have
seen the trooper's horse, which comes closer to him than the comrade
fighting by his side; for it is to his horse more than to his sword that
the soldier must owe any glory that he may hope to win; and when
strength and courage can no longer serve, it is his horse that often
gives his own body to shield his rider from death.

And if all this be true, as all horsemen know it to be--even when the
bond is strained by cruelty and tainted by gain and stained by
blood--how much closer and stronger must have been the tie between this
priest of the wilderness and his friend. Toby's loyalty