And she never made a move. She
wanted him to see, to understand that she had not hurt him and would not hurt
him. It began to dawn upon her that he was magnificent.
Finally, with a long, slow heave he got to his feet. Lucy led him out of the
hole to open ground. She seemed somehow confident. There occurred to her only
one way to act.
"A little horse sense, as Dad would say," she soliloquized, and then, when she
got him out of the brush, she stood thrilled and amazed.
"Oh, what a wild, beautiful horse! What a giant! He's bigger than the King.
Oh, if Dad could see him!"
The red stallion did not appear to be hurt. The twitching of his muscles must
have been caused by the cactus spikes embedded in him. There were drops of
blood all over one side. Lucy thought she dared to try to pull these thorns
out. She had never in her life been afraid of any horse. Farlane, Holley, all
the riders, and her father, too, had tried to make her realize the danger in a
horse, sooner or later. But Lucy could not help it; she was not afraid; she
believed that the meanest horse was actuated by natural fear of a man; she was
not a man and she had never handled a horse like a man.
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