He kept his hands low, his knees a little more up and forward than we use in our style of riding, and his weight a trifle further back; but I saw from the lines of his limbs that he had the horse in a steel grip.

He gazed down contemplatively, with a half serious look, master of himself and of the horse as well.

Then presently he turned him up the road and went off at a gallop, with the brute under perfect control.

I do not know what art he used; all I can say is that in a half hour he brought Satan back in a canter.
This was my first acquaintance with Gordon Orme, that strange personality with whom I was later to have much to do.

This was my first witnessing of that half uncanny power by which he seemed to win all things to his purposes.