For answer Shasta put his foot iirrup of the hor which had beeowards him and a moment later he was in the saddle. He had do a huimes with Bree in the last few weeks, and his mounting was very different now from what it had been on that first night when Bree had said that he climbed up a hor as if he were climbing a haystack.
He lead to hear the Lord Darrin say to the King, “The boy has a true horman’s at, Sire. I’ll warrant there’s noble blood in him.”
“His blood, aye, there’s the point,” said the King. Aared hard at Shasta again with that curious expression, almost a hungry expression, in his steady, grey eyes.
But by now — the whole party was moving off at a brisk ter. Shasta’s at was excellent but he was sadly puzzled what to do with his reins, for he had ouched the reins while he was on Bree’s back. But he looked very carefully out of the ers of his eyes to e what the others were doing （as some of us have do parties when we weren’t quite sure whiife or fork we were meant to u） and tried to get his fingers right. But he didn’t dare to try really direg the hor; he trusted it would follow the rest. The hor was of cour an ordinary hor, not a Talking Hor; but it had quite wits enough to realize that the strange boy on its back had no whip and no spurs and was not really master of the situation. That was why Shasta soon found himlf at the tail end of the procession.
Even so, he was going pretty fast. There were no flies now and the air in his face was delicious. He had got his breath back too. And his errand had succeeded. For the first time sihe arrival at Tashbaan （how long ago it emed！） he was beginning to enjoy himlf.
He looked up to e how muearer the mountain tops had e. To his disappoi he could hem at all： only a vague greyness, rolling down towards them. He had never been in mountain try before and was surprid. “It’s a cloud,” he said to himlf, “a cloud ing down. I e. Up here in the hills one is really in the sky. I shall e what the inside of a cloud is like. What fun！ I’ve often wondered.” Far away on his left and a little behind him, the sun was getting ready to t.
They had e th kind of road by now and were making very good speed. But Shasta’s hor was still the last of the lot. Once or twice when the road made a bend （there was now tinuous forest on each side of it） he lost sight of the others for a d or two.