l you out of thot place couple days before! And now"--he suddenly
leaped to his feet--"now you haf mek me break you to thees wagon and
harness!" He advanced to the startled horse and brandished his fist.
"But I break you!" he snarled--"I break you like a horse never was broke
before! And--and if I don' break you--if you don' do what I haf say--I
break every bone inside!" With this he began feverishly to peel off his
coat.

And this is the lot of the dumb. Merely for not knowing what a man
believed he should know, Pat was to be humiliated, was to be punished
far beyond justice and decency. And because he was a horse abnormally
highstrung and sensitive, this punishment was to be doubly cruel. To him
a blow was more painful than to the average horse, even as a word of
kindness sank deeper and remained longer to soften his memory. On his
maternal side he was the offspring of native stock, but he was blooded
to the last least end of him, and while from his mother he had inherited
his softer traits, like his affection for those who showed affection for
him, it was from his sire, unknown though he was, that he inherited an
almost human spirit of rebellion when driven by lash or harsh word, and
also the strength to exercise it. In the face of these qualities, then,
he was to be broken to harness and a wagon by a man!

Felipe lost little time in preparation. He set out through the
settlement, his destination a distant and kindly neighbor. He moved at a
stride so vigorous that the good townspeople, roused by the rare
spectacle of a man in a hurry, interrupted their passive loafing beside
well and in doorway, and turned wondering eyes after him. But if their
eyes showed wonderment at his going, on his return they showed amazement
and a kind of horror. For Felipe, acting for once in the capacity of
work-horse, was straining along at the end of a huge wagon-tongue
affixed to a crude and mastodonic axle which in turn supported two
monolithic cart-wheels. It was a device by which he meant to break the
horse to harness, and, perspiring freely, and swearing even more freely,
he dragged it shrieking for grease through the settlement, really at
work, but work which was not to be admired. Reaching the clearing in
front of his house, he dropped the heavy tongue and whipped out a red
handkerchief with a sigh of relief. Also, as he wiped away the
perspiration on his forehead and neck and arms, he turned baleful eyes
upon the innocent cause o