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The weight-carrying wire-rope is thus dispensed with, and the installation acquires a new character, becoming, in point of fact, a moving bridge which is drawn across its supports and fits into the grooves in the wheels surmounting the latter.
Of course, nothing but a downright test of speed and weight-carrying power, horse to horse, could decide which was the superior, but Andrew had ridden Gray Peter many times when he and Uncle Jasper went out to the Dozier place, and he felt that he could sum up the differences between the two beautiful animals. Sally was the smaller of the two, for instance.
There were the General, stout and inelegant, wont to take his fences carefully, who changed his weight-carrying mount thrice during the day, and liked a gateway better than a thorny hedge, and for the last fifteen years had never been in at the death; and his wife, the leader of fashion, but not yet the leader of the Hunt; the Major, an old shekarry from India, who still could ride as straight and fast as any man in the west; and his niece, the belle of the countryside, whose mettlesome hunter occasionally showed a sudden fondness for taking the bit between his teeth, and carrying his mistress, with reckless abandon, over furrow and five-barred gate and through the thickest hedgerow anywhere, so long as he had breath and the music of the hounds allured him onward in his impetuous career.
Few people have large enough studs to stand the wear and tear of this fine, wild country; consequently the fields are generally small. Sport, though not so good as it used to be, is still very fair, and to run down to Great Wood in the duke's country is sufficient to tax the powers of the finest weight-carrying hunter, whilst only the man with a quick eye to a country can live with hounds.
Also, as they had come up the aisle of the woods she had been assailed by a late but serious doubt, whether a weight-carrying motor-car was quite the right kind of vehicle in which to approach the lair of the Twins with hostile intent. Its powerful, loud-throbbing engine had seemed to her to advertise their advent with all the competence of a trumpet. Her doubt was well-grounded.
The plane which had earlier dropped an occasional bomb in a hit-or-miss fashion over the side now developed either into a powerful two-seater with a great weight-carrying capacity and a continually more efficient scientific method of aiming its missiles or into a huge machine for long-distance night-bombing work capable of carrying from two to a dozen men and from two to four tons of bombs.
It is interesting to note, however, that the supporters of the airship have worked out a general theory that the lighter-than-air vessel with its already demonstrated cruising and weight-carrying capacity will be used for all long routes, and for that almost exclusively, while the heavier-than-air vessel, with its great speed and facility for maneuvering, will be used for local flights.
The ordinary line officer or soldier who is somewhat accustomed to carrying weights and does not require a hospital drill to teach him to carry a wounded comrade a few yards, looks with a certain degree of envy upon the possession of a hospital litter with its convenient straps for weight-carrying, and would consider this a very convenient means for carrying a pack.
Their heads grew lumpier, their necks more scraggy, their croups more slanting, their legs shorter; but their hoofs grew denser, hardier, their shorter coupling gave them greater weight-carrying possibilities, the stout bones and the clean lines of their legs meant speed, and above all they kept the stout heart of the thoroughbred and they gained more than this, an indomitable, bulldog persistence.
The style of hack should be in thorough keeping with that of the rider. A slight lady has a greater range of choice in horseflesh than a portly dame, who would be best suited with a weight-carrying hunter or compact cob. The height might vary from 14-2 to 15-3. I hardly think that even a small woman would look well on a pony which is less than 13-3.
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