When Iron Turns to Gold

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Even though the slope was steep and broken and cut with boulders, Andrew Lanning let the reins hang slack and gave the mare her head. But, in spite of the difficulty of the course before her, Sally gave only half of her attention to it. She was mountain bred and mountain trained, and accordingly, she had that seventh sense in her dainty feet to which only mountain horses ever attain.

She knew a thousand little tricks. She knew that, when gravel began to slip beneath her, the thing to do was not to stop merely or to whirl and go back, but to spring like a cat to one side. For that small beginning might mean a landslide of no mean proportions. By that seventh sense on those small, black hoofs she understood the rocks; she sensed which of them were too slippery for acrobatics and which, for all their apparent smoothness, were so friable that she could get a toehold. She knew to a fraction of a degree what angle of a slope was practicable for a descent, and as for climbing, if she did not quite have the prowess of a mountain sheep, she had the same heart and the same calm scorn for heights. With this equipment it was no wonder that Sally went carelessly down the slope according to her own free will, sometimes walking, sometimes sitting back on her haunches and sliding, sometimes breaking into a beautiful, free gallop when she came onto a comparatively level shoulder of the hill.

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