This was by no means the first time Mrs. Conover had plucked up courage to entreat her lord not to ride his favorite horse, Dunderberg, the most vicious, tricky brute in all that horse-breeding State. And never yet had the Railroader deigned to heed her request. In fact, such opposition rather pleased him than otherwise, inasmuch as it enhanced, to all listeners, his own equestrian prowess.
Caleb Conover was a notoriously bad rider. Horsemanship must be learned before the age of twenty or never at all. And Conover was well past forty before he threw leg over saddle. But he loved the exercise, and took special joy in buying and mastering the most unmanageable horses he could find.
How so wretched a horseman could avert bad falls or even death was a mystery to all who knew him. It was seemingly by his own sheer will power and brutal strength of mind and body that he remained triumphant over the worst horse; was never thrown nor failed to conquer his mount.
It was one of the sights of Granite to see Caleb Conover careering down the main avenue of the residence district, backing some foaming, plunging hunter, whose wildest efforts could never shake that stiff, indomitable figure from its seat. With walloping elbows and jerking shoulders, the Railroader was wont to thunder his way at top speed up and down suburban byways; inciting his horse to its worst tricks, tempting it to buck, kick, wheel or rear. And when the maddened brute at length indulged in any or all of these manœuvres, a joy of battle would light the rider’s face as, with unbreakable knee-grip and a self-possession that never deserted him, he flogged the steed into subjection.
In telling Letty that there was no horse he could not safely manage and control Conover had but repeated an oft-made boast—a boast whose truth he had a score of times proven. He was not a constant equestrian. He never rode for the mere pleasure of it. In ordinary moments he cared little for such recreation. But when he was angered, or perplexed, or desired to freshen jaded nerves or brain, his first order was for his newest, worst-tempered horse.
As he rode so semi-occasionally, and as the horse he selected was usually one which even his pluckiest grooms feared to exercise, the brute in question was fairly certain to be in a state of rampant, rank “freshness,” and to require the best work of two men to lead him from the stables to the porte-cochère. As few steeds could long withstand such training as Conover inflicted, he was forever changing mounts. The horse of the hour would wax so tame and docile as to preclude further excitement, or would break a blood-vessel or go dead lame in one of the fierce conflicts with its master. Then a new mount must be sought out.
It was barely a month earlier that Caleb had discovered Dunderberg, and had bought the great black stallion at an outrageously high price. And thus far the purchase still delighted him, for Dunderberg not only showed no signs of cringing to the master’s fiery will, but daily grew fiercer and more unmanageable.
So, while Mrs. Conover trembled, wept and alternately prayed and watched the length of driveway beyond her window, the Railroader was wont to dash at breakneck speed along the farther country roads, atop his huge black horse, checking the mad pace only for occasional battles-royal with the ever-fractious beast.
To-night, coming atop the previous excitement of the “pleasant home hour,” the strain on Letty was too great. Clinging convulsively to Anice, the poor woman wept with a hysterical abandon that almost frightened the girl. Tenderly, lovingly as a mother the girl soothed the trembling old lady; comforting her as only a woman of great heart and small hand can; quieting at length the shuddering hysterics into half-stifled sobs.
Had Caleb Conover (upstairs wrestling with an overtight riding boot) chanced upon the group, he would have been sore puzzled to recognize in this all-tender, pitying maiden the coldly reserved secretary on whose unruffled composure and steady nerve he had so utterly come to rely.