University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
THE CAMP OF THE WILD HORSE.

We had encamped in a good neighbourhood
for game, as the reports of rifles in various directions
speedily gave notice. One of our hunters
soon returned with the meat of a doe, tied up
in the skin, and slung across his shoulders. Another
brought a fat buck across his horse. Two
other deer were brought in, and a number of
turkeys. All the game was thrown down in
front of the Captain's fire, to be portioned out
among the various messes. The spits and camp
kettles were soon in full employ, and throughout
the evening there was a scene of hunters' feasting
and profusion.

We had been disappointed this day in our
hopes of meeting with buffalo, but the sight of
the wild horse had been a great novelty, and
gave a turn to the conversation of the camp for
the evening. There were several anecdotes told

of a famous grey horse, that has ranged the prairies
of this neighbourhood for six or seven years,
setting at naught every attempt of the hunters
to capture him. They say he can pace and rack
(or amble) faster than the fleetest horses can run.
Equally marvellous accounts were given of a
black horse on the Brasis, who grazed the prairies
on that river's banks in the Texas. For years
he outstripped all pursuit. His fame spread far
and wide; offers were made for him to the
amount of a thousand dollars; the boldest and
most hard riding hunters tried incessantly to
make prize of him, but in vain. At length he
fell a victim to his gallantry, being decoyed under
a tree by a tame mare, and a noose dropped
over his head by a boy perched among the
branches.

The capture of the wild horse is one of the
most favourite achievements of the prairie tribes;
and, indeed, it is from this source that the Indian
hunters chiefly supply themselves. The wild
horses that range those vast grassy plains, extending
from the Arkansas to the Spanish settlements,
are of various forms and colours, betraying
their various descents. Some resemble the
common English stock, and are probably descended
from horses that have escaped from our
border settlements. Others are of a low but
strong make, and are supposed to be of the Andalusian

breed, brought out by the Spanish discoverers.

Some fanciful speculatists have seen in them
descendants of the Arab stock, brought into
Spain from Africa, and thence transferred to
this country; and have pleased themselves with
the idea, that their sires may have been of the
pure coursers of the desert, that once bore Mahomet
and his warlike disciples across the sandy
plains of Arabia.

The habits of the Arab seem to have come
with the steed. The introduction of the horse
on the boundless prairies of the Far West, changed
the whole mode of living of their inhabitants.
It gave them that facility of rapid motion,
and of sudden and distant change of place,
so dear to the roving propensities of man. Instead
of lurking in the depths of gloomy forests,
and patiently threading the mazes of a tangled
wilderness on foot, like his brethren of the north,
the Indian of the West is a rover of the plain;
he leads a brighter and more sunshiny life; almost
always on horseback, on vast flowery prairies
and under cloudless skies.

I was lying by the Captain's fire, late in the
evening, listening to stories about those coursers
of the prairies, and weaving speculations of my
own, when there was a clamour of voices and
a loud cheering at the other end of the camp;

and word was passed that Beatte, the half-breed,
had brought in a wild horse.

In an instant every fire was deserted; the
whole camp crowded to see the Indian and his
prize. It was a colt about two years old, well
grown, finely limbed, with bright prominent
eyes, and a spirited yet gentle demeanour. He
gazed about him with an air of mingled stupefaction
and surprise, at the men, the horses, and
the camp fires; while the Indian stood before
him with folded arms, having hold of the other
end of the cord which noosed his captive, and
gazing on him with a most imperturable aspect.
Beatte, as I have before observed, has a greenish
olive complexion, with a strongly marked
countenance, not unlike the bronze casts of Napoleon;
and as he stood before his captive horse,
with folded arms and fixed aspect, he looked
more like a statue than a man.

If the horse, however, manifested the least
restiveness, Beatte would immediately worry
him with the lariat, jerking him first on one side,
then on the other, so as almost to throw him on
the ground; when he had thus rendered him
passive, he would resume his statue like attitude
and gaze at him in silence.

The whole scene was singularly wild; the
tall grove, partially illumined by the flashing fires
of the camp, the horses tethered here and there

among the trees, the carcasses of deer hanging
around, and in the midst of all, the wild huntsman
and his wild horse, with an admiring throng
of rangers, almost as wild.

In the eagerness of their excitement, several
of the young rangers sought to get the horse by
purchase or barter, and even offered extravagant
terms; but Beatte declined all their offers.
“You give great price now;” said he, “to-morrow
you be sorry, and take back, and say d—d
Indian!”

The young men importuned him with questions
about the mode in which he took the horse,
but his answers were dry and laconic; he evidently
retained some pique at having been undervalued
and sneered at by them; and at the same
time looked down upon them with contempt as
greenhorns, little versed in the noble science of
woodcraft.

Afterwards, however, when he was seated by
our fire, I readily drew from him an account of
his exploit; for, though taciturn among strangers,
and little prone to boast of his actions, yet his
taciturnity, like that of all Indians, had its times
of relaxation.

He informed me, that on leaving the camp,
he had returned to the place where we had lost
sight of the wild horse. Soon getting upon its
track, he followed it to the banks of the river.

Here, the prints being more distinct in the sand,
he perceived that one of the hoofs was broken
and defective, so he gave up the pursuit.

As he was returning to the camp, he came
upon a gang of six horses, which immediately
made for the river. He pursued them across the
stream, left his rifle on the river bank, and putting
his horse to full speed, soon came up with
the fugitives. He attempted to noose one of
them, but the lariat hitched on one of his ears,
and he shook it off. The horses dashed up a
hill, he followed hard at their heels, when, of a
sudden, he saw their tails whisking in the air,
and they plunging down a precipice. It was
too late to stop. He shut his eyes, held in his
breath, and went over with them—neck or nothing.
The descent was between twenty and
thirty feet, but they all came down safe upon a
sandy bottom.

He now succeeded in throwing his noose
round a fine young horse. As he galloped along
side of him, the two horses passed each side of
a sapling, and the end of the lariat was jerked
out of his hand. He regained it, but an intervening
tree obliged him again to let it go. Having
once more caught it, and coming to a more
open country, he was enabled to play the young
horse with the line until he gradually checked
and subdued him, so as to lead him to the place
where he had left his rifle.

He had another formidable difficulty in getting
him across the river, where both horses
stuck for a time in the mire, and Beatte was
nearly unseated from his saddle by the force of
the current and the struggles of his captive.
After much toil and trouble, however, he got
across the stream, and brought his prize safe
into the camp.

For the remainder of the evening, the camp
remained in a high state of excitement; nothing
was talked of but the capture of wild horses;
every youngster of the troop was for this harum
scarum kind of chase; every one promised himself
to return from the campaign in triumph,
bestriding one of these wild coursers of the
prairies. Beatte had suddenly risen to great
importance; he was the prime hunter, the hero
of the day. Offers were made him by the best
mounted rangers, to let him ride their horses in
the chase, provided he would give them a share
of the spoil. Beatte bore his honours in silence,
and closed with none of the offers. Our stammering,
chattering, gasconading little Frenchman,
however, made up for his taciturnity, by
vaunting as much upon the subject as if it were
he that had caught the horse. Indeed he held
forth so learnedly in the matter, and boasted so
much of the many horses he had taken, that he
began to be considered an oracle; and some of

the youngsters were inclined to doubt whether
he were not superior even to the taciturn
Beatte.

The excitement kept the camp awake later
than usual. The hum of voices, interrupted by
occasional peals of laughter, was heard from
the groups around the various fires, and the
night was considerably advanced before all had
sunk to sleep.

With the morning dawn the excitement revived,
and Beatte and his wild horse were again
the gaze and talk of the camp. The captive
had been tied all night to a tree among the other
horses. He was again led forth by Beatte, by
a long halter or lariat, and, on his manifesting
the least restiveness, was, as before, jerked and
worried into passive submission. He appeared
to be gentle and docile by nature, and had a
beautifully mild expression of the eye. In his
strange and forlorn situation, the poor animal
seemed to seek protection and companionship
in the very horse that had aided to capture him.

Seeing him thus gentle and tractable, Beatte,
just as we were about to march, strapped a light
pack upon his back, by way of giving him the
first lesson in servitude. The native pride and
independence of the animal took fire at this indignity.
He reared, and plunged, and kicked,
and tried in every way to get rid of the degrading

burthen. The Indian was too potent for
him. At every paroxysm he renewed the discipline
of the halter, until the poor animal,
driven to despair, threw himself prostrate on
the ground, and lay motionless, as if acknowledging
himself vanquished. A stage hero,
representing the despair of a captive prince,
could not have played his part more dramatically.
There was absolutely a moral grandeur
in it.

The imperturbable Beatte folded his arms,
and stood for a time, looking down in silence
upon his captive; until seeing him perfectly
subdued, he nodded his head slowly, screwed
his mouth into a sardonic smile of triumph, and,
with a jerk of the halter, ordered him to rise.
He obeyed, and from that time forward offered
no resistance. During that day he bore his
pack patiently, and was led by the halter; but
in two days he followed voluntarily at large
among the supernumerary horses of the troop.

I could not but look with compassion upon
this fine young animal, whose whole course of
existence had been so suddenly reversed. From
being a denizen of these vast pastures, ranging
at will from plain to plain and mead to mead,
cropping of every herb and flower, and drinking
of every stream, he was suddenly reduced
to perpetual and painful servitude, to pass his

life under the harness and the curb, amid, perhaps,
the din and dust and drudgery of cities.
The transition in his lot was such as sometimes
takes place in human affairs, and in the fortunes
of towering individuals:—one day, a prince of
the prairies—the next day, a pack-horse!