THE ROUND-UP 



these centaurs of the plains thrown in, a cowboy and 

 horse is down, he's up before his horse — he's mounted 

 and is off again. 



Bang ! There they go again. 



But this time it is a band of mounted Indians, each 

 one of which, save for a breech clout and the paint his 

 squaw had decorated him with, is as unhampered by 

 the garb of conventionality as September Morn. They 

 shoot down the wind — see how they lash hide and 

 cling to pole in their mad hurly-burly sweep around 

 the oval, in a way which for utter fearlessness makes 

 tenderfoot and stranger catch their bieath. 



Out come a score of mounted cowboys — each kicks 

 off his chapps onto the ground beside him and mounts. 

 They are facing the opposite direction from the way 

 the other races start, you wonder why. It's the quick 

 change race and shows skill in preparing to ride and 

 changing saddles. They start in a flash but bring up 

 as suddenly after a scant one hundred yards, swing 

 horses, dismount and remove saddles; mount again 

 and back ; jump into chapps, and now leaping through 

 the air they are back to saddles, which with astonishing 

 swiftness they have put on properly cinched up. Seem- 

 ing to shoot through space they have crossed the line 

 at the starting point. 



The squaw race is announced, and the mounted 

 phalanx of full-blood, Umatilla Indian girls on Indian 

 ponies line up at the pole. For gameness and fine rid- 

 ing the twenty squaws who run the squaw race, also 

 on horses that are bare-back save for surcingle, are 

 worthy representatives of their tribe. 



"Go!" In brilliant garb, like a moving bouquet of 

 color, their black braids streaming in the wind, they 

 shoot like iridescent streaks around the great oval. 



141 



