Part One Chapter 2 Meriwether and Theodosia

If it was not the horse of a monarch the young man bestrode, none the less it was the horse of one who insisted that his stables should be as good as those of any king--none less, if you please, than Mr. Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States of America.

This particular animal was none other than Arcturus, Mr. Jefferson's favorite saddler. It was the duty as well as the delight of Mr. Jefferson's private secretary to give Arcturus and his stable-mate, Wildair, their exercise on alternate days. On this summer morning Arcturus was enjoying his turn beneath his rider--who forsooth was more often in the saddle than Mr. Jefferson himself.

Horse and rider made a picture in perfect keeping as they fared on toward the little-used forest road which led out Rock Creek way. Yonder, a few miles distant, was a stone mill owned by an old German, who sometimes would offer a cup of coffee to an early horseman. Perhaps this rider knew the way from earlier wanderings thither on other summer mornings.

Arcturus curveted along and tossed his head, mincing daintily, and making all manner of pretense at being dangerous, with sudden gusts of speed and shakings of his head and blowing out of his nostrils--though all the time the noble bay was as gentle as a dog. Whether or not he really were dangerous would have made small difference to the young man who bestrode him, for his seat was that of the born horseman.