Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/195

Rh the wide forehead and all the other good points which invariably go with that feature; but her face was just a trifle dished; her ears, though of an almost transparently delicate tissue, were a bit too long, but very thin and tapering. Moreover, her eye was apt to be a bit dull. She had been a pet all her life, and, like most pets, her eye partook of the human quality. It had a conversational way of brightening and growing dull. On the whole, the head of Sally had a whimsical, inquisitive expression, and by her whole carnage she seemed to be perpetually putting her nose into other business than her own. A horseman would have wished to send her to school, where she would have been taught to cock up her tail and bend her neck.

But the gait was the main difference. Riding Gray Peter, one felt an enormous force urging at the bit and ready and willing to expend itself to the very last ounce, with tremendous courage and good heart; there was always a touch of fear that Gray Peter, plunging unabated over rough and smooth, might be running himself out. But Sally would not maintain one pace. She was apt to shorten her stride for choppy going, and she would lengthen it like a witch on the level. She kept changing the elevation of her head. She ran freely, looking about her and taking note of what she saw, so that she gave an indescribable effect of enjoying the gallop just as much as her rider, but in a different way. When Andrew spoke to her she would flick an ear back as though she listened to him with half her mind, and, if she approved of his order, both ears were pricking at once, but, if she did not like the direction, her ears went back and she ran sullenly. All in all, Gray Peter was a glorious machine; Sally was a tricky intelligence. Gray Peter's