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I suppose in the old days of Western range a boy started riding a horse at an early age, and the horse, centaur-like, became an extension of his body, and was centrally, almost unconsciously involved in all the trials, losses, gains and exultations that ultimately defined his character.

What you have done is really wonderful. Fed me, put me up in your room, given me what you call a second set of clothes, but perfect so far as I can see. I was at the end of everything. And you haven’t even asked me who I am.
I’m delighted I could help a fellow, I said. It was very little. I’m delighted, really, just to have an intelligent person to French to.
Your French is magnificent.

Three days beyond the fort on the stage, following the line of telegraph poles like a spider slowly clambering its web. The dry grass prairie is sere and burned looking, like brown skin with a worn ghost of hair on it, the buffalo far to the south at this time of year, Thanksgiven day, but packs of white wolves standing and looking at us curiously. What can they find to eat? All morning long we look forward to seeing the telegraph relay station, mainly beacuse there is utterly nothing else to see. That is the place where I will depart from my two fellow passengers and wait for the stage that comes through from the north, and will take me south to my destination.

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