CATCHING WILD HORSES. (Chicago paper.)

Otago Witness, Issue 1894, 22 May 1890, Page 27

CATCHING WILD HORSES. (Chicago paper.)

Usually the occupation of capturing the untamed steeds was followed by three men working together. They used four or five hardy, fleet, well-trained horses. When the section of the country the wild animals frequented was reached, the first thing was to select a suitable location, at tho entrance of a ravine generally, for a corral. This the catchers knew how to construct, using great quantities of rope very speedily. Then near this corral, on the most sightly eminence, one man stationed himself. A distance beyond it, on the apparently most natural runway, another man with one of the fleetest of the saddle horses takes his station. The work of the most skilled man of the three then begins. Mounted upon the picked horse of the lot, with a pair of field glasses, a water bag, and a supply of food, he swings away in the earliest dawn on an easy lope. It may be 10 or 20 miles before his keen eyes, aided by the glasses with which he sweeps the broad expaube ot rolling plain, detect a grazing band of horses. He approaches them by the easiest course which will permit concealment, and then, within a few hundred yards, he dashes into sight and the sport ia begun. The affrighted animals stand for an instant, the morning breeze fanning their luxuriant manes and tails. They snort in alarm, turn and trot off at fir6t, and then, aa it is apparent this strange creature is pursuing, break into a run. It is now that the race ia to both the swift and the enduring. The trained horse on which the man is astride knows his part of the work, and he does it intelligently. With head well down, swinging out on a long, swift lope, he follows the fleeing band. They run madly, becoming more and more affrighted as they perceive that they are indeed pursued. The first wild burst of speed carries them far in advance, but not out of sight. By dexterous engineering the rider and horse behind shorten the distance as much aH poss-ible. The band ahead are apt to be kept on the move. That is the trick. Not

a halt are they to get for a bite of grass or sup of water. They have set the course in a generally straightaway direction. That course they must be kept upon. Mile after mile is rapidly covered. Tho sun comes up hot and scorching in the cloudless sky. But there 16 no stop for a restful graze nor opportunity for a drink from a chance stream. If the band ahead, with tails streaming nnd nostrils dilated, divert from the general direction to sweep around the base of a ridge, the wary horseman and his equally wise animal take the shorter and easier way, cutting the segment, as it were, but always ever in sight and always coming, coming. The fright of the wild horsea has grown into veritable terror. They throw bits of fonm from their mouths. They are worried, half-crazed by their merciless, continuous, unrelenting pursuit. But the man behind knows that they will soon do something that is perhaps as strange as their peculiar habits of community relation. He has rested hia horse at every opportunity. Whenever there was a chance his faithful animal has been given a nibble at the succulent grass, and had a sup from a spring or little stream. Ridden though he is, the tough and experienced plains pony is freiher than the fleeting equines ahead. They now show signs of the greatest perturbation. Their stomachs are empty, their wind is " blown," their tongues are dry. But fear makes them half unconscious of these sufferings, although they are gradually wearing under them. At length, when they have gone 40 or 50, or perhaps 60 miles, the patriarch begins to run in an eccentric way. He is not as sure of his course as he was. He wheels and turus, and then goes ahead again, but with uncertainty. It is this the shrewd man and shrewd pony knew would happen. They drop out of sight for a moment behind a ridge. The stallion, his nostrils dilated and quivering, and his eyes flashing, makes a sudden run, and in another moment, with his band of faithful spouses, he is galloping over the track he has come. Now is the race in earnest and to the bitter end. The nervy, gamy, swift horse behind knows that his energies have been saved for the task that is yet bafore him. As he feels the spar he springs ahead with the racing blood aflame in his veins. It is a terrific chase. New terror at this extraordinary, this unlooked-for denouement of what the fleeing animals ahead had thought in their brute instinct was a successful ruse to throw the pursuer off the track, gives them desperate strength, too; but they are worn, and fretted, and starved, and burning with thirst. They run for their lives. Nearer, mile after mile, they approach the starting place. The sun is ablaze after noonday, but still the hot race goes on. Now, faithful, plucky, speedy pony, bearing a saddle-worn but grimly determined man to do your best. Your strong legs will fail, sinewy as they are. The faster you run the quicker your day's terrible effort is over. The man left behind on the eminence is sweeping the plains with his powerful glasses. He has watched an hour, perhaps, two, or even three. At last his range of vision becomes centred upon something away in the distance. It may be a bunch of antelope. It may be a band of wild horses, that are running for play. But as he watches closer he discerns it is not sport that causes that moving group of specks. He trains the glasses intently until at last he can see behind the running animals a solitary horse, and that horse has a rider. He is in the saddle with a bound, calls to another horse grazing near, and away they fly toward this approaching cavalcade. He runs the horse as swiftly as he can, and at length spies plainly, perhaps two or three miles away, the fleeing bunch, and behind them in hot chase the gallant horse and rider. A signal tells him he too has been seen, and then, seizing the topographical features of the intervening space, he skulks swiftly behind the ridges and elevations to cross the course. This is something which requires rare judgment of the speed of the running band, and a deft choice of the friendly ridges which he must pursue, keeping out of sight of the worn and terrorised animals whose attention should not be attracted from the relentless pursuer behind. The trick, though, is well done, and while the wary but still dauntless stallion and his following mares sweep around the base of an elevation, the tired, gamy pony and the two fresh horses and men meet. As quickly as saddles can be transferred the gallaut horse that has made a run of 75, 85, or possibly 90 miles, is free and rolling on the grass, and the iron-muscled man who bestrode him is on another fleet and fresh horse and again hot after the quarry. It has been human brain against horse brain. The reinforcements have thus far won the day. Now follows the most skilful manoeuvring. The terrorised band cannot run much further. They have almost exhausted even their wellnigh tireless vitalitj . They again became confused, and resort to their last device. There straight-away tactics are deserted, and they commence running in a circle. At first it is two miles in diameter. The pursuer makes his circle in a little less space. The diameter reduces to a mile. The man on horseback runs but the circumference of a circle a distance inside. Gradually this grows lsss. The poor, panting, exhausted creatures stagger around, determined to die in what they think is their only means of escape. They have entirely lost their reason, if such it might be called. Narrower and narrower becomes their course, until at last, with the sun sinking low in the west, they stand panting, weaving back and forth, conquered for the time. They may have run 100 miles. Mr Bell states that he has had chases to greatly exceed that distance. The three men close in on them and skilfully drive them toward the corral. Amoug them and in their lead now has come a strange, saddleless horse, but they are too bewildered to know it. This horse slowly marks the course guided by the men driving, and at last leads within the half -concealed seclusion the 13 prisoners. Once there the wild horses are wild no longer. They aie captives sure and safe. They may rest and graze, but escape they cannot.