Fearing he would pass without seeing her, she whinneyed, once-and-a-half, as had been her wont. Davis stopped, glanced about, mystified, and was going on when she repeated her greeting, anxiously. At that he looked at her, sharply and curiously. Involuntarily he answered, with his old familiar whistle. At sound of this Old Grey was so overcome with joy that she snapped her hitch-rein with a quick jerk, and trotted right up to him! He was so pale and thin from long captivity that she would hardly have known him by sight, alone; it was his scent that convinced her infallible nostrils that he was really her once ruddy and strong master. Davis took her back to the old place where he had just rebuilt the hut and stable and there they had lived happily together ever since. * * * * * On the Highway from Boston to Canada, stood Benedict’s Tavern, and here True often met distinguished horses on their way to or from the race course on The Plains of Abraham, in Quebec, where men sent their horses from great distances to test their speed against other horses. There were then, in the United States of America, no race-courses. It was at this stage-house, no doubt, that in True was first born that racing spirit, of which nothing came for a long time. In the late winter of his first year at Randolph, Master Morgan fell ill with lung-trouble; he had to give up his teaching and singing and, finding he could not afford to keep a horse, hired True out to one Robert Evans, a farmer and hunter, solid as granite, and kindly, to clear fifteen acres of heavy-timbered land. For this task Evans agreed to pay Morgan fifteen dollars and to feed the horse. Evans, big chinned and grey eyed, was a lean and sinewy frontiersman, poor and hard-working, with a large family, and True knew, intuitively, that his days of pleasant jaunting about the country under the saddle were over. However, with that indomitable courage, which characterizes his descendants to this day, he set about the difficult task and by the first of June it was finished, without help from any other horse.[6] He never regretted this work for it developed his chest and leg muscles early in life, muscles, the like of which had not been known before in a horse of his size. The setting of many of True’s most interesting experiences and exciting adventures at this period of his life, was Chase’s Mill. This busy spot was situated on the wooded bank of the White River, as pretty a bit of Vermont as one could find in a day’s journey. The river sparkled and laughed between green banks and leaped merrily over the mill-wheel; spruce and firs thrust thirsty feet deep down in the water and reared tall heads high into the upper air to catch the sun’s rays; perfume of wild flowers loaded the breeze; birds sang all day, and white stemmed birches guarded the nearby forest like soldiers standing in a row, straight and firm.