d all,
uniform and underwear, with or without soap as conditions might compel,
in a nearby stream, often breaking the ice to get to the water, and
dancing about naked in the cold, running and jumping, while they dried
on bushes or the branch of a tree.

"Those poor rats," he added most contemptuously, "used to sit inside and
wonder at me or laugh and jeer, hovering over their stoves, but a lot of
them died that very winter, and here I am today."

And well we knew it. I used to study the faces of many of the puffy,
gelatinous souls, so long confined to their comfortable offices,
restaurants and homes that two hours on horseback all but wore them out,
and wonder how this appealed to them. I think that in the main they took
it as an illustration of either one of two things: insanity, or giant
and therefore not-to-be-imitated strength.

But in regard to them Culhane was by no means so tolerant. One day, as I
recall, there arrived at the sanitarium a stout and mushy-looking
Hebrew, with a semi-bald pate, protruding paunch and fat arms and legs,
who applied to Culhane for admission. And, as much to irritate his other
guests, I think, as to torture this particular specimen into some
semblance of vitality, he admitted him. And thereafter, from the hour he
entered until he left about the time I did, Culhane seemed to follow him
with a wolfish and savage idea. He gave him a most damnable and savage
horse, one that kicked and bit, and at mounting time would place Mr.
Itzky (I think his name was) up near the front of the procession where
he could watch him. Always at mount-time, when we were permitted to
ride, there was inside the great stable a kind of preliminary military
inspection of all our accouterments, seeing that we had to saddle and
bridle and bring forth our own steeds. This particular person could not
saddle a horse very well nor put on his bit and bridle. The animal was
inclined to rear and plunge when he came near, to fix him with an evil
eye and bite at him.

And above all things Culhane seemed to value strain of this kind. If he
could just make his guests feel the pressure of necessity in connection
with their work he was happy. To this end he would employ the most
contemptuous and grilling comment. Thus to Mr. Itzky he was most unkind.
He would look over all most cynically, examining the saddles and
bridles, and then say, "Oh, I see you haven't learned how to tighten a
belly-band yet," or "I do believe you have