d never had to do before;
but the instinct came with the need.

Slowly, tremblingly, feeling her weakness, she stole towards him, a
bunch of grass in her hand she had plucked as she came, holding it
obviously as she had fed a lump of sugar or an apple to her finely
groomed mare in New York. But the grass she held was like all the grass
about him, and the pony had not been raised a pet. He tossed his nose
energetically and scornfully as she drew near and hastened on a pace or
two.

Cautiously she came on again talking to him gently, pleadingly,
complimentarily: "Nice good horsey! Pretty pony so he was!" But he only
edged away again.

And so they went on for some little way until Hazel almost despaired of
catching him at all, and was becoming more and more aware of the
vastness of the universe about her, and the smallness of her own being.

At last, however, her fingers touched the bridle, she felt the pony's
quick jerk, strained every muscle to hold on, and found she had
conquered. He was in her hands. For how long was a question, for he was
strong enough to walk away and drag her by the bridle perhaps, and she
knew little about tricks of management. Moreover her muscles were so
flabby and sore with the long ride that she was ill-fitted to cope with
the wise and wicked little beast. She dreaded to get upon his back
again, and doubted if she could if she tried, but it seemed the only way
to get anywhere, or to keep company with the pony, for she could not
hope to detain him by mere physical force if he decided otherwise.

She stood beside him for a moment, looking about her over the wide
distance. Everything looked alike, and different from anything she had
ever seen before. She must certainly get on that pony's back, for her
fear of the desert became constantly greater. It was almost as if it
would snatch her away in a moment more if she stayed there longer, and
carry her into vaster realms of space where her soul would be lost in
infinitude. She had never been possessed by any such feeling before and
it frightened her unreasoningly.

Turning to the pony, she measured the space from the ground to the queer
saddle and wondered how people mounted such things without a groom. When
she had mounted that morning it had been Milton Hamar's strong arm that
swung her into the saddle, and his hand that held her foot for the
instant of her spring. The memory of it now sent a shudder of dislike
over her whole body. If she had