CHAPTER XVI. 



THE WILD HORSES OF AMERICA. 



The romances of fifty 7ears ago Was the horse indigenous to this country? 

 The theories of the paleontologists not satisfactory Pedigrees of over two- 

 millions of years too long Outlines of horses on prehistoric ruins evi- 

 dently modern The linguistic test among the oldest tribes of Indians fails 

 to discover any word for "Horse" The horses abandoned west of the 

 Mississippi by the followers of De Spto about 1541 were the progenitors of 

 the wild horses of the plains. 



FIFTY years ago there was much that was romantic and mys- 

 terious in our conceptions of the real character and origin of the 

 vast herds of wild horses that abounded on our Western plains, and 

 the same remark applies to their congeners on the pampas of 

 South America. The wild horse and the Indian opened up a 

 most inviting field for the writers of romance, and current litera- 

 ture was flooded with "Wild Western" stories, with the horse and 

 the Indian as the leading characters. We are now one genera- 

 tion, at least, this side of the time when stories of this kind are 

 either sought or read, but we are not past the period when the 

 origin or introduction of the horse on this continent may be con- 

 sidered with interest and profit. Before touching upon the wild 

 horse, as known in our early history, however, it may be well to- 

 consider, briefly, the question as to whether he may not have 

 been indigenous to this continent. 



In our generation the spade has become a wonderful developer 

 of the truths of ancient history. The buried and forgotten cities. 

 of the old world are being unearthed in Europe, Asia and Africa, 

 and thousands of works of art and learning that had vanished 

 from the face of the earth are again restored to the knowledge 

 of the human race. In a kindred branch of investigation the 

 geologists and paleontologists have been delving into the bowels- 

 of the earth not to find what previous generations of men had 

 left behind them, but to find what life was myriads of ages before 

 man was placed on the earth. Out of the rocks they have,, 



