KAWEAH'S RUN. 125 



visible limit. It was not pleasant to realize that I had 

 one hundred and twenty miles of this lonely landscape 

 ahead of me, nor that my only companion was Kaweah ; 

 for, with all his splendid powers and rare qualities of in- 

 stinct, there was not the slightest evidence of response or 

 affection in his behavior. Friendly toleration was the 

 highest gift he bestowed on me, though I think he had 

 great personal enjoyment in my habits as a rider. 



6. The only moments that we ever seemed thoroughly 

 en rapport were when I crowded him down to a wild run, 

 using the spur and shouting at him loudly, or when, in 

 our friendly races homeward toward camp, through the 

 forest, I put him at a leap where he even doubted his own 

 power. At such times I could communicate ideas to him 

 with absolute certainty. He would stop, or turn, or gather 

 himself for a leap at my will, as it seemed to me, by some 

 sort of magnetic communication ; but I always paid dearly 

 for this in long, tiresome efforts to calm him. With the 

 long, level road ahead of me, I dared not attack its monot- 

 ony by any unusual riding, and, having settled him at our 

 regular traveling trot a gait of about six miles an hour 

 I forgot all about the dreary expanse of plain, and gave 

 myself up to quiet reverie. About dusk we reached the 

 King's Biver Ferry. 



7. As I walked over to see Kaweah at the corral, I 

 glanced down the river, and saw, perhaps a quarter of a 

 mile below, two horsemen ride down one bank, spur their 

 horses into the stream, swim to the other side, and strug- 

 gle up a steep bank, disappearing among bunches of cot- 

 tonwood-trees near the river. So dangerous and unusual 

 a proceeding could not have been to save the half-dollar 

 ferriage. There was something about their seat, and the 

 cruel way they drove home their spurs, that, in default of 

 better reasons, made me think them Mexicans. 



