Step by step, the training proceeded.  Submission first, then an establishment of perfect trust and confidence between horse and man, without which nothing worth having could be attained.

After that, in orderly succession the rest followed:  toleration of handling, reining, mouthing, leading on foot, and on horseback and in due time saddling and mounting.  One thing at a time and nothing new until the old was so perfected that when all was ready for the mounting from a spectacular point of view the mounting was generally disappointing.  Just a little rearing and curvetting, then a quiet, trusting acceptance of this new order of things.

Half a dozen horses were in hand at once, and, as with children at school, some quickly got ahead of the others, and every day the interest grew keener and keener in the individual character of the horses.  At the end of a week Jack announced that he was “going to catch the brown colt,” next day.  “It’ll be worth seeing,” he said; and from the Quiet Stockman that was looked upon as a very pressing invitation.

From the day of the draughting he had ceased altogether to avoid me, and in the days that followed had gradually realised that a horse could be more to a woman than a means of locomotion; and now no longer drew the line at conversations.

When we went up to the yards in the morning, the brown colt was in a small yard by itself, and Jack was waiting at the gate, ready for its “catching.”

With a laugh at the wild rush with which the colt avoided him, he shut himself into the yard with it, and moved quietly about, sometimes towards it and sometimes from it; at times standing still and looking it over, and at other times throwing a rope or sack carelessly down, waiting until his presence had become familiar, and the colt had learned that there was nothing to fear from it.

There was a curious calmness in the man’s movements, a fearless repose that utterly ignored the wild rushes, and as a natural result they soon ceased; and within just a minute or two the beautiful creature was standing still, watching in quivering wonder.

Gradually a double rope began to play in the air with ever-increasing circles, awakening anew the colt’s fears; and as these in turn subsided, without any apparent effort a long running noose flickered out from the circling rope, and, falling over the strong young head, lay still on the arching neck.

The leap forward was terrific; but the rope brought the colt up with a jerk; and in the instant’s pause that followed the Quiet Stockman braced himself for the mad rearing plunges that were coming.  There was literally only an instant’s pause, and then with a clatter of hoofs the plungings began, and were met with muscles of iron, and jaw set like a vice, as the man, with heels dug into the ground dragged back on the rope, yielding as much as his judgment allowed—­enough to ease the shocks, but not an inch by compulsion.