Interspersed with snatches of conversation and intervening silences were occasional admonitions directed at her by the colonel, instructing her to keep her feet parallel to the horse’s sides, not to lean forward, to keep her elbows down and her left forearm horizontal.
“I never knew there was so much to riding!” she exclaimed, laughingly. “I thought you just got on a horse and rode, and that was all there was to it.”
“That is all there is to it to most of the people you see riding rented horses around Los Angeles,” Colonel Pennington told her. “It is all there can ever be to the great majority of people anywhere. Horsemanship is inherent in some; by others it can never be acquired. It is an art.”
“Like dancing,” suggested Eva.
“And thinking,” said Custer. “Lots of people can go through the motions of riding, or dancing, or thinking, without ever achieving any one of them.”
“I can’t even go through the motions of riding,” said Shannon ruefully.
“All you need is practice,” said the colonel. “I can tell a born rider in half an hour, even if he’s never been on a horse before in his life. You’re one.”
“I’m afraid you’re making fun of me. The saddle keeps coming up and hitting me, and I never see any of you move from yours.”
Guy Evans was riding close to her.
“No, he’s not making fun of you,” he whispered, leaning closer to Shannon. “The colonel has paid you one of the greatest compliments in his power to bestow. He always judges people first by their morals and then by their horsemanship; but if they are good horsemen, he can make generous allowance for minor lapses in their morals.”