“Ain’t she jist one fair clipper?” asked Shelby, proudly.  “Lord, but that girl’s worth about a dozen of your ornery kind.  She’s a thoroughbred all through, she is.”

“Well, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that, fer a fact, I ain’t.  I knowed them was good horses, but, well, I didn’t know they was saddle horses.”

“They’ve more’n saddle horses, man, an’ I’m bettin’ a month’s wages your eyes’ll fair pop out inside five minutes.  I know her ways.  I larned ’em to her, some on ’em, at least—­but most was born in her.  They has ter be.  There’s some things can’t be L’ARNT, man.”

Once more Peggy started, this time her mount showing greater confidence in her.  At first they loped lightly around the paddock, poor old Pepper alternately following, then stopping to look at his mate, apparently trying to reason it all out.  Gradually the pace increased until once more Salt swept along in the stride which from time immemorial has distinguished racing blood.  The fifth time around the broad field, Peggy turned him suddenly and making straight for the paling, cried in a ringing voice: 

“On!  On!  Up—­Over!”

The horse quivered, his muscles grew tense, then there was a gathering together of the best in him and the fence was taken as only running blood takes an obstacle.

Then her surprise came: 

Pepper meantime seemed to have lost his wits.  As Salt neared the fence, the mate who for years had plodded beside him began to tear around and around the field, snorting, whinnying and giving way to the wildest excitement.  As Salt skimmed over the fence Pepper’s decorum fled, and with a loud neigh he tore after him, made a wild leap and cleared the barrier by a foot, then startled and shaken from his unwonted exertion, he stood with legs wide apart, trembling and quivering.

In an instant Peggy had wheeled her mount and was beside the poor frightened creature; frightened because his blood had asserted itself and he had literally outdone himself.  Slipping from Salt’s back she tossed her bridle to Shelby who had hurried toward her, and taking Pepper’s head in her arms petted and caressed him as she would have petted and caressed a child which had made a superhuman effort to perform some seemingly impossible act.

“Nelly, Nelly, come here.  Come.  He will know your voice so much better than mine,” she called, and Nelly scrambled out of the wagon as quickly as possible, crying: 

“Why, Miss Stewart, how did you do it.  Why we never knew they were so wonderful.  Oh, Dad, did you know they could jump and run like that?”

“I knew they come o’ stock that had run, an’ jumped like that, but I didn’t know all that ginger was in ’em.  No I did not.  It took Miss Stewart fer ter find that out, an’ she sure has found it.  Why, Pepper, old hoss,” he added, stroking the horse’s neck, “you’ve sartin’ done yo’self proud this day.”