A STORY OF THE HEAVY DRAUGHT SERVICE
He was a three-quarter blood Norman, was Chieftain. You would have known that by his deep, powerful chest, his chunky neck, his substantial, shaggy-fetlocked legs. He had a family tree, registered sires, you know, and, had he wished, could have read you a pedigree reaching back to Sir Navarre (6893).
Despite all this, Chieftain was guilty of no undue pride. Eight years in the trucking business takes out of one all such nonsense. True, as a three-year-old he had given himself some airs. There was small wonder in that. He had been the boast of Keokuk County for a whole year. "We'll show 'em what we can do in Indiana," the stockmaster had said as Chieftain, his silver-white tail carefully done up in red flannel, was led aboard the cars for shipment East.
They are not unused to ton-weight horses in the neighborhood of the Bull's Head, where the great sales-stables are. Still, when Chieftain was brought out, his fine dappled coat shining like frosted steel in the sunlight, and his splendid tail, which had been done up in straw crimps over night, rippling and waving behind him, there was a great craning of necks among the buyers of heavy draughts.
"Gentlemen," the red-faced auctioneer had shouted, "here's a buster; one of the kind you read about, wide as a wagon, with a leg on each corner. There's a ton of him, a whole ton. Who'll start him at three hundred? Why, he's as good as money in the bank."
That had been Chieftain's introduction to the metropolis. But the triple-hitch is a great leveller. In single harness, even though one does pull a load, there is chance for individuality. One may toss one's head; aye, prance a bit on a nipping morning. But get between the poles of a breast-team, with a horse on either side, and a twelve-ton load at the trace-ends, and—well, one soon forgets such vanities as pride of champion sires, and one learns not to prance.
In his eight years as inside horse of breast-team No. 47, Chieftain had forgotten much about pedigree, but he had learned many other things. He had come to know the precise moment when, in easing a heavy load down an incline, it was safe to slacken away on the breeching and trot gently. He could tell, merely by glancing at a rise in the roadway, whether a slow, steady pull was needed, or if the time had come to stick in his toe-calks and throw all of his two thousand pounds on the collar. He had learned not to fret himself into a lather about strange noises, and not to be over-particular as to the kind of company in which he found himself working. Even though hitched up with a vicious Missouri Modoc on one side and a raw, half collar-broken Kanuck on the other, he would do his best to steady them down to the work. He had learned to stop at crossings when a six-foot Broadway-squad officer held up one finger, and to give way for no one else. He knew by heart all the road rules of the crowded way, and he stood for his rights.
He would do his best to steady them down to the work.