(Deep impression of his claws, and dirt kicked up.) _They had finished the walk about a quarter of an hour_ before I came there.

(Because the horse's droppings at this point were quite fresh; covered with flies; not dried outside by the sun.) _They had been cantering up to the point where they began the walk, but one horse had shied violently on passing the invalid in the rickshaw._ (Because there was a great kick up of gravel and divergence from its track just where the rickshaw track bent into the side of the road, and afterwards overrode the horse's tracks.) NOTE .-- I might have inferred from this that the invalid was carrying an umbrella which frightened the horse, and was, therefore, a lady.

But I did not think of it at the time and had rather supposed from the earliness of the hour that the invalid was a man.

Invalid ladies don't, as a rule, get up so early.
_Deduction_ _The tracks were those of a lady and gentleman out for a ride, followed by her dog._ Because had the horses been only out exercising with syces they would have been going at a walk in single file (or possibly at a tearing gallop).
They were therefore ridden by white people, one of whom was a lady; because, 1st, a man would not take a big, heavy dog to pound along after his horse (it had pounded along long after the horses were walking); 2nd, a man would not pull up to walk because his horse had shied at a rickshaw; but a lady might, especially if urged to do so by a man who was anxious about her safety, and that is why I put them down as a man and a lady.

Had they been two ladies, the one who had been shied with would have continued to canter out of bravado.