"Dad has lots of quiet old horses you could try," went on Merle.
"Thanks," replied her guest. "You don't feel anxious on a quiet horse, do you?"
"I don't know," she answered. "I never ride 'em." And this time the desire to smack her was so strong that Dick was obliged to take down a bridle and examine it to keep his hands out of harm's way.
They found O'Mara, the head groom, busy in a yard behind the stables, helping a black boy to bathe the hock of a fine bay mare that had managed to get entangled with some barbed wire. The mare was young and half-broken, and could understand neither her throbbing leg nor the hands that were dealing with it; and the boy was stupid and rough, with the result that she was plunging and kicking violently, and resisting every attempt to touch the injured part. O'Mara was rapidly losing patience.
"Ye have no more gumption than a cow," he told the boy angrily. "Take her aisy, will ye? Remember her laig is sore, an' don't touch it as if ye were scrubbin' a brick floor." The boy dabbed at the swollen hock, and the mare kicked furiously and danced away on three legs and O'Mara uttered pungent comments. "That you, Miss Merle? Take care, now, an' keep back; that one'd kick the eye out of a mosquito, she's that bothered with this black omadhaun. 'Tis all I wish the boss hadn't gone before he helped me to do her; this boy's no good either to hould her or to bathe her. Whisht now, my beauty—no one's going to hurt you at all."
"Can I hold her?" Dick asked.
"Better keep back, sir. She's gentle enough, only she don't understand why she's hurt."
"Poor old girl!" said Dick gently. He went up to the mare's head, all his horse-loving soul eager to touch her. The wild eyes softened under his quiet hand. He stroked her nose, and then slid his fingers up quietly, rubbing her neck and talking to her under his breath. It was months since he had handled a horse, except the forbidden luxury of the milkman's pony. The very feel of the rippling muscles under the satin skin of her neck was a delight to him. He put his cheek against hers and the mare stopped trembling and muzzled against him. Dick looked up at O'Mara half shyly.
"Isn't she a beauty?" he said. "Seems a shame to hurt her."
"We'll try not to," said O'Mara happily. "Sure, 'tis yourself has the way with you, with a horse. Keep talkin' to her, now, and I'll do her hock that gentle she won't know she's touched."