Jessie knew from experience that the worst thing she could do, would be to clamp down on the rope and lean on it with the entire weight of her body. In effect, it would have added more pressure to the rope and caused more panic in the colt. She didn’t want to make the situation worse. She simply moved with the colt, softly holding the lead rope, but keeping the same amount of pressure on the halter that was there when he began to pull away. The colt tried to fight the pressure by pulling harder, but every time he did, Jessie simply moved with him.

The colt realized quickly that fleeing from the pressure the halter was putting on him wasn’t working. Not only was he not getting away from the pressure but the pressure also stayed relatively consistent. Eventually, when fleeing didn’t work, he tried something else. He did the one thing his instinct told him not to do: he went into the pressure and toward Jessie. Immediately, the pressure went away which caused him to stop fighting. As soon he did that, Henry left the pen, further relieving the pressure the colt was feeling.

Jessie began to back away from the colt slowly, and once again took the slack out of the rope. Again the colt fought the pressure, but this time not as much or for as long before stopping and moving toward Jessie. She repeated this four more times before the colt began moving toward her, instead of away every time he felt pressure. Within less than a half-hour, not only could the colt follow someone that was in front of him, but he could also give to the pressure from the halter.

Over the next few days, both Henry and Jessie spent time reinforcing the lesson with the colt. He became so comfortable with the concept that Jessie was able to finally take him out of the round pen he had been in since Tom Essex dropped him off nearly two months earlier. She took him for very short walks at first in the area of the round pen. But within days she was able to walk him all over the ranch: by the barn, the bunkhouse, tack room and in the yard up by her house. Once she was able to take him in all those areas without much worry on his part, then Henry repeated the process. After a week of leading and giving to pressure, Jessie made the decision to put the colt in with a small band of her geldings in one of the larger paddocks so that he could socialize and get out to stretch his legs; something he hadn’t really been able to do since before he went off the ledge up on the mesa over a year before.

Henry went along with Jessie as she led the colt into the two-acre pen and removed his halter. She left the pen and stood with Henry just outside the gate. The colt came to the gate and stood looking at them as if not knowing what to do next, when up the gradually sloping hill from the back of the paddock galloped the six geldings that resided there. In a flash, the geldings had the colt surrounded. With bowed necks and stiff bodies, they smelled his flanks, shoulders and nose. Simultaneously, the colt and the older gelding Jack that was sniffing his nose and mouth at the time, squealed and struck out with one of their front feet, neither striking or coming close to each other. All of the horses milled around, posturing, prancing and snorting when, as if some unseen or unheard command had been given, they all galloped off together, heads high and tails in the air, back down the hill toward the far end of the paddock with the colt galloping right along with them.