Before taking off on their journey that morning, TV goes off to be with his friend, his horse Monte, and he talked to it as the narrator writes in his diary.
Later, TV observes that Monte is among the few horses that are shod front and back--with horseshoes on all four hooves.
Again, TV is musing about Steve. They used to run together as young men. "'We was just colts then' he said. He dwelt on their coltish doings, their adventures sought and wrought in the most perfect fellowship of youth. 'For Steve and me most always hunted in couples back in those gamesome years,' he explained. And he fell into the elemental talk of sex, such talk as would be an elk's or a tiger's; and spoken so him, naturally and simply, as we speak of the seasons, or of death, or of any actuality, it was without offence, or would be offence should I repeat it."