Hu7iting with Hounds. 381 



somewhat ahead of any of them. Taken as a class, how- 

 ever, and compared with other classes as numerous, and 

 not with a few exceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the 

 Rocky Mountain stage-driver, has no superiors anywhere 

 for his own work ; and they are fine fellows, these iron- 

 nerved reinsmen and rougfh-riders. 



When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe they 

 made a practice in England, France, Germany, and Italy 

 of offering to break and ride, in their own fashion, any 

 horse given them. They were frequently given spoiled 

 animals from the cavalry services in the different countries 

 through which they passed, animals with which the trained 

 horse-breakers of the European armies could do nothing ; 

 and yet in almost all cases the cowpunchers and bronco- 

 busters with Buffalo Bill mastered these beasts as readily 

 as they did their own western horses. At their own work 

 of mastering and riding rough horses they could not be 

 matched by their more civilized rivals ; but I have great 

 doubts whether they in turn would not have been beaten 

 if they had essayed kinds of horsemanship utterly alien to 

 their past experience, such as riding mettled thorough- 

 breds in a steeple-chase, or the like. Other things being 

 equal (which, however, they generally are not), a bad, big 

 horse fed on oats offers a rather more difficult problem 

 than a bad little horse fed on grass. After Buffalo Bill's 

 men had returned, I occasionally heard it said that they 

 had tried cross-country riding in England, and had shown 

 themselves pre-eminently skilful thereat, doing better than 

 the English fox-hunters, but this I take the liberty to dis- 

 believe. I was in Engrland at the time, hunted occasion- 



