ng. It was not long before the pony
allowed him to mount, and nothing remained but to teach him to endure
the saddle and the bridle. This was done by belting him and checking him
to a pad strapped upon his back. He struggled fiercely to rid himself of
these fetters. He leaped in the air, fell, rolled over, backing and
wheeling around and around till Dan grew dizzy watching him.

A bystander once said: "Why don't you climb onto him and stay with him
till he gets sick o' pitchin'; that's what a broncho buster would do."

"Because I don't want him 'busted'; I want him taught that I'm his
friend," said Harold.

In the end "Jack," as Harold called the roan, walked up to his master
and rubbed his nose against his shoulder. Harold then stripped away the
bridle and pad at once, and when he put them on next day Jack winced,
but did not plunge, and Harold mounted him. A day or two later the colt
worked under the saddle like an old horse. Thereafter it was a matter
of making him a horse of finished education. He was taught not to trot,
but to go directly from the walk to the "lope." He acquired a swift walk
and a sort of running trot--that is, he trotted behind and rose in front
with a wolflike action of the fore feet. He was guided by the touch of
the rein on the neck or by the pressure of his rider's knee on his
shoulder.

He was taught to stand without hitching and to allow his rider to mount
on either side. This was a trick which Harold learned of a man who had
been with the Indians. "You see," he said, "an Injun can't afford to
have a horse that will only let him climb on from the nigh side, he has
to get there in a hurry sometimes, and any side at all will do him."

It was well that Jack was trained early, for as they drew out on the
open prairie and the feed became better the horses and cattle were less
easy to drive. Each day the interest grew. The land became wilder and
the sky brighter. The grass came on swiftly, and crocuses and dandelions
broke from the sod on the sunny side of smooth hills. The cranes, with
their splendid challenging cries, swept in wide circles through the sky.
Ducks and geese moved by in myriads, straight on, delaying not. Foxes
barked on the hills at sunset, and the splendid chorus of the prairie
chickens thickened day by day.

It was magnificent, and Harold was happy. True, it was not all play.
There were muddy roads to plod through and treacherous sloughs to cross.
There were nights when ca