Miller Chase stepped forward, hospitably.
“First come in, men, and fix up your bets over a mug,” he said.
They went inside the shop, all talking at once, and left True nibbling among the grasses and weeds. When they had disappeared he glanced at the log which the other horses had “refused”—horses much larger and heavier than he. The opportunity he had hoped for had come!
“But can I do it?” he asked himself.
The answer was, he could, and would.
He was spurred to the greatest effort of his life by the taunt that he was a “pony.” At any rate he was over fourteen hands and weighed nine hundred and fifty pounds!
“As I understand it,” Evans was saying, as the men came out of the shop, “the agreement is that my horse has got to pull that big log ten rods onto the logway, in three pulls, or I lose?”
“That’s the idea, exactly,” assented Miller Chase.
Evans took hold of True’s bridle confidently, and led him to the enormous log, where he fastened the tugs properly. Then he stepped one side and looked the young horse straight in the eye.
True returned his look—they might almost have been said to have exchanged a wink.