The grooming of the horses is hard work and requires considerable strength, even when the horse is quiet; with wild and difficult horses it is necessary to hobble and muzzle them before grooming is possible. They are often deceptively quiet at first, and it may take a few days of bitter experience before the kickers and biters are discovered! Besides the daily grooming, which has to be performed for each horse like a child’s toilet, there is the clipping and singeing. After the grooming comes the work of keeping the stables, which must be cleaned out and disinfected daily; while the harness and “tackle” have to be cleaned and polished. There is also the care of the horses in sickness and convalescence, which requires particular skill and knowledge. [Illustration: (1) MISS BATHER AND HER “LADS” EXERCISING HORSES (2) SOME OF THE STABLE “HANDS” _Alfieri_ _To face page 51_] With regard to the exercising, Miss Bather writes: “This is fraught with difficulties and anxieties, especially with a new lot of horses. To set the pace someone responsible has to lead the string with the quiet horses that will face the traffic; but though all army horses are supposed to be broken in, I have known our string resemble a Wild West Show!” An eyewitness described an occasion when she happened to meet Miss Bather’s “lads” out for exercising. One of the horses had taken fright, and, breaking loose, had become entangled in barbed wire near the road. The onlooker states that the girls behaved with the utmost coolness, extricating the struggling horse with courage and skill, and successfully preventing a stampede among the other horses. During the first year of her work about 500 horses passed through Miss Bather’s depôt, and in June, 1917, she completed her second year of work. Miss Dorothy Ravenscroft is another lady who has been doing similar work for the War Office. She is responsible for a remount depôt at Chester, where, with the help of twelve girl assistants, forty horses at a time are prepared for active service. The horses here are mostly officers’ cobs and chargers, and, as at the other depôts, the girl workers do the entire work of the stables, as well as the exercising, grooming, and feeding of the horses. The post of superintendent of a Remount Depôt is one of considerable responsibility, for the success of a depôt depends largely upon the personality of the responsible head. Her life is necessarily one of continual anxiety, not only for the horses, but for her girl workers, who need to be chosen carefully; the work is far too great a strain physically and mentally for girls under twenty. Writing to a friend recently, a superintendent said with truth: “One’s nerves need to be made of iron; I am wondering how much longer mine will stand the strain.”