place, and he felt that he could sum up the differences
between the two beautiful animals. Sally was the smaller
of the two, for instance. She could not stand more
than fifteen hands, or fifteen-one at the most. Gray
Peter was a full sixteen hands of strong bone and fine
muscle, a big animal—almost too big for some purposes.
Among these rocks, now, he would stand no chance with
Sally. Gray Peter was a picture horse. When one
looked at him one felt that he was a standard by which
other animals should be measured. He carried his head
loftily, and there was a lordly flaunt to his tail. On
the other hand, Sally was rather long and low. Her
back, indeed, was comparatively short, as the back of
a good saddle horse must be, but she had a long line
underneath, so long that one felt at first glance that she
would be apt to break down under a hard ride and a big
burden. There was something subtly deceptive about
her—she got that impression of length not so much out
of her coupling as from the great slope and length of
her shoulders and the length of the straight croup. Furthermore, her neck, which was by no means the heavy
neck of the gray stallion, she was apt to carry stretched
rather straight out and not curled proudly up as Gray
Peter carried his. Neither did she bear her tail so
proudly. Some of this, of course, was due to the difference between a mare and a stallion, but still more
came from the differing natures of the two animals. In
the head lay the greatest variation. The head of Gray
Peter was close to perfection, light, compact, heavy of
jowl, a great distance from the eye to the angle of the
jaw, and well set upon his neck; his eye at all times was
filled with an intolerable brightness, a keen flame of
courage and eagerness. But one could find a fault with
Sally's head. In general, it was very well shaped, with
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190
FREE RANGE LANNING