THE INDIAN'S HORSE. 149 



' Though of indispensable value to the Indian, 

 he receives not a particle of attention. He is never 

 stabled, nor washed, nor rubbed, nor curried, nor 

 blanketed, nor shod, nor fed, nor doctored. 



' When travelling over rough and rocky ground, 

 his rider may take the trouble to tie up a tender 

 foot in a piece of buffalo robe. 



fi After endurance, the best quality of the pony 

 is sureness of foot. He will climb a steep rocky hill 

 with the activity and assurance of the mule. He 

 will plunge down an almost precipitous declivity 

 with the indifference of the buffalo. 



4 For going over swamps and marshy places he 

 is only excelled by the elk, and he will go at speed 

 through sandhills, or ground perforated with gopher 

 holes, where an American horse would labour to 

 get along at a walk, and fall in the first fifty yards 

 of a gallop. 



' The amount of work got out of him by the 

 Indian is astonishing. No mercy is shown. Tell an 

 Indian to find out something miles away, and he will 

 probably go and return at full speed, though the 

 distance made be twenty miles. And this work is 

 done under apparently most unfavourable circum- 

 stances : a terrible bit, an ill-fitting saddle, and a 

 rider as cruel and remorseless as Fate itself.' (' Hunt- 

 ing Grounds of the Great West.') 



