The intractability of the Lady Jezebel was beyond all bounds. Her vagaries were legion. After his experiences with her, Tresler might have been forgiven the vanity of believing, in spite of her sex, that he had fathomed her every mood. But she was forever springing unpleasant surprises, and her present one was of a more alarming nature than anything that had gone before. One of her tricks, bolting, was not so very serious, but now she proved herself a "blind bolter." And among horsemen there is only one thing to do with a blind bolter--shoot it. A horse of this description seems to be imbued with but one idea--a furious desire to go, to run anywhere, to run into anything lying in its course, to run on until its strength is spent, or its career is suddenly terminated by a forcible full stop.
At the bend of the trail the mare took blindly to the bush. Chance guided her on to a cattle-path which cut through to the pinewoods beyond. It was but a matter of moments before her rider saw the dark shadow of the woodlands come at him with a rush, and he plunged headlong into the gray twilight of their virgin depths. He had just time to crouch down in the saddle, with his face buried in the tangle of the creature's flying mane, when the drooping boughs, laden with their sad foliage, swept his back. He knew there were only two courses open to him. Either he must sit tight and chance his luck till the mad frolic was spent, or throw himself headlong from the saddle at the first likely spot. A more experienced horseman would, no doubt, have chosen the latter course without a second thought. But he preferred to stay with the mare. He was loth to admit defeat. She had never bested him yet, and a sort of petty vanity refused to allow him to acknowledge her triumph now. They might come to an opening, he told himself, a stretch of open country. The mare might tire of the forest gloom and turn prairieward. These things suggested themselves merely as an excuse for his foolhardiness in remaining in the saddle, not that he had any hope of their fulfilment.
And so it was. Nothing moved the animal out of her course, and it seemed almost as though a miracle were in operation. For, in all that labyrinth of tree-trunks, a sheer road constantly opened out before them. Once, and once only, disaster was within an ace of him. She brushed a mighty black-barked giant with her shoulders. Tresler's knee struck it with such painful force that his foot was wrenched from the stirrup and dragged back so that the rowel of his spur was plunged, with terrific force, into the creature's flank. She responded to the blow with a sideways leap, and it was only by sheer physical strength her rider retained his seat. Time and again the reaching boughs swept him and tore at his clothes, frequently lacerating the flesh beneath with the force of their impact.