The grand brute made a rearing leap that brought a cry from the mother and a laugh from the young driver, and swung into the road at a flying pace.

The night was clear and cold, the sleighing excellent, and the boy's heart was full of exultation.
It was a joy just to control such a horse as he drew rein over that night.

Large, with the long, lithe body of a tiger and the broad, clear limbs of an elk, the gray colt strode away up the road, his hoofs flinging a shower of snow over the dasher.

The lines were like steel rods; the sleigh literally swung by them; the traces hung slack inside the thills.

The bells clashed out a swift clamor; the runners seemed to hiss over the snow as the duck-breasted cutter swung round the curves and softly rose and fell along the undulating road.
On either hand the snow stood billowed against the fences and amid the wide fields of corn-stalks bleached in the wind.