204 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



this terrible exploration, when the Spaniards crossed the Missis- 

 sippi they had two hundred and fifty men and one hundred and 

 fifty horses, and when they came back and were ready to sail 

 they had but four or five horses left. It is fair, therefore, to 

 conclude that the greater portion of these hundred and fifty head 

 was scattered in the wilderness as they went out and as they re- 

 turned. This provides a sufficient breeding basis for the count- 

 less multitudes of descendants, and places that nucleus in the 

 right region to nourish them in a feral state. 



While this exploration of De Soto seems to furnish a breeding 

 basis of sufficient breadth to account for all the wild horses that 

 have appeared on this continent, there is another consideration 

 that we must not overlook, and that is the inborn tendency of 

 the domestic horse to become wild when in wild associations. 

 By turning to the chapter on the colony of Virginia you will see 

 that there were many wild horses there at the beginning of the 

 last century. On the frontiers, near the habitat of wild horses, 

 they became a great nuisance to the settlers in "coaxing" away 

 their domestic horses and making them as wild as the wildest. 

 These accretions to their strength from the domestic horse have 

 been going on for generations, and thus the wild horse became 

 conglomerate in the elements of his blood, with the Spanish 

 traits still predominant. Fifty or a hundred years ago the pens- 

 of many writers were employed in idealizing "The Wild Horse of 

 the Desert." He was made the leading figure in many a romance, 

 and the hero of many a triumph. Tom Thumb, the great trot- 

 ter that was taken to England, astonished all the world with his. 

 speed and his endurance, and, following the fashion of the day, 

 he was represented to have been caught wild on the Western 

 plains. For many years the wild horse was the "fad" of Ameri- 

 can writers, just as the Arabian was of English writers, and the 

 writers on one side were just about as far from intelligence and 

 truth as those on the other. When, forty years ago, great droves 

 of the half-breeds, Mustangs, were brought from the plains to 

 the border prairie States, seeking a market, the scales began to 

 drop from the eyes of the worshipers of the wild horse. They 

 were homely little brutes, and they were as tough as whit-leather. 

 But the countless multitudes that roamed at will over their 

 grazing grounds, making the earth tremble when they moved, 

 have dwindled down to a few insignificant bands, and the whole 

 glamour around the wild horse of the desert has vanished. 



