At Petaluma we rested over while King was returned to the ranch and Prince sent to us.  Now Prince had proved himself an excellent wheeler, yet he had to go into the lead and let the Outlaw retain his old place.  There is an axiom that a good wheeler is a poor leader.  I object to the last adjective.  A good wheeler makes an infinitely worse kind of a leader than that.  I know . . . now.  I ought to know.  Since that day I have driven Prince a few hundred miles in the lead.  He is neither any better nor any worse than the first mile he ran in the lead; and his worst is even extremely worse than what you are thinking.  Not that he is vicious.  He is merely a good-natured rogue who shakes hands for sugar, steps on your toes out of sheer excessive friendliness, and just goes on loving you in your harshest moments.

But he won’t get out of the way.  Also, whenever he is reproved for being in the wrong, he accuses Milda of it and bites the back of her neck.  So bad has this become that whenever I yell “Prince!” in a loud voice, Milda immediately rabbit-jumps to the side, straight ahead, or sits down on the lead-bar.  All of which is quite disconcerting.  Picture it yourself.  You are swinging round a sharp, down-grade, mountain curve, at a fast trot.  The rock wall is the outside of the curve.  The inside of the curve is a precipice.  The continuance of the curve is a narrow, unrailed bridge.  You hit the curve, throwing the leaders in against the wall and making the polo-horse do the work.  All is lovely.  The leaders are hugging the wall like nestling doves.  But the moment comes in the evolution when the leaders must shoot out ahead.  They really must shoot, or else they’ll hit the wall and miss the bridge.  Also, behind them are the wheelers, and the rig, and you have just eased the brake in order to put sufficient snap into the manoeuvre.  If ever team-work is required, now is the time.  Milda tries to shoot.  She does her best, but Prince, bubbling over with roguishness, lags behind.  He knows the trick.  Milda is half a length ahead of him.  He times it to the fraction of a second.  Maid, in the wheel, over-running him, naturally bites him.  This disturbs the Outlaw, who has been behaving beautifully, and she immediately reaches across for Maid.  Simultaneously, with a fine display of firm conviction that it’s all Milda’s fault, Prince sinks his teeth into the back of Milda’s defenceless neck.  The whole thing has occurred in less than a second.  Under the surprise and pain of the bite, Milda either jumps ahead to the imminent peril of harness and lead-bar, or smashes into the wall, stops short with the lead-bar over her back, and emits a couple of hysterical kicks.  The Outlaw invariably selects this moment to remove paint.  And after things are untangled and you have had time to appreciate the close shave, you go up to Prince and reprove him with your choicest vocabulary.  And Prince, gazelle-eyed and tender, offers to shake hands with you for sugar.  I leave it to any one:  a boat would never act that way.