"Now you two ignorant babes, I'll show you how to drive a horse that you've made baulky; and I want you to know that there are not any baulky horses; it's baulky drivers that make the trouble." He went to the creature's head, talked to it, stroked its nose, blew in its nostrils, and continued to talk till the ears no longer lay back at his touch. Presently the eyes ceased rolling and the legs were not bracing nervously. "Now," said Jim softly, "will you be after pulling a little? Yes? Come now," he coaxed wheedlingly, "come now," and he tightened the lines. But the horse shook his head, showed temper as before, and held back. "Oh, that's what ye want, is it?" said Jim. "All right, back up it is," and gently man[oe]uvring, he shouted: "Back!" Both horses backed. He kept them backing, and by deft steering, held the wagon in the road. Back they went steadily. Now the baulky horse indicated his willingness to go on; but Jim wasn't ready. It was back, back, and back some more. For a hundred yards he kept it up. At last, when he changed about and gave the order to "Get up!" the one-time baulky horse was only too glad to change his gear and pull his very best. Jim took the load up the little hill, and on a quarter mile, where he waited for the original teamsters to come up. "There, now," said Jim as he handed over the lines to the sullen driver, "you should have found that bunch of cockle burrs. It was all your fault, not the horse's. And if he hadn't responded to the backing, I'd have tied a pebble in his ear and left him for a few minutes to think it over. Then he'd have gone all right; it never fails. I tell you there aren't any baulky horses if they are rightly handled." A cheer came from the buggies as the load of timber rolled away around the hill. As Hartigan got in beside Belle the two rigs came by. The men shouted, "Good for you! That was a fine job." Jim blushed with pleasure; it was all so simple and familiar to him; but when he turned to look at Belle, she was white and ill. "Let's go home, Jim," she whispered. He looked at her in some surprise; then slowly it dawned on him--she had never before seen the roughness of men fighting. To him it was no more than the heavy sport of the football field. To her it was brutality unloosed; it was shocking, disgusting, next to murder. With mingled feelings of regret, amusement, and surprise he said, "Dear heart, you take it all too seriously." Then he put his arm about her, tender as a woman, and a few minutes later placed her gently in the rocking chair in the white cottage. CHAPTER XLIX The Power of Personality "Who is that?" said an elderly man in one of the buggies that passed Hartigan after the adventure with the baulky horse. "I think it's the new preacher," said the driver. "Anyhow, we can easily see." They watched the buckboard with the black horse and saw it turn in at the white cottage.