ON THE PRAIRIE 165 



the trail, or would commit some one of the 

 thousand other tricks which seem to be all 

 a pack-pony knows. Then at night they 

 were a bother; if picketed out they fed 

 badly and got thin, and if they were not 

 picketed they sometimes strayed away. 

 The most valuable one of the lot was also 

 the hardest to catch. Accordingly we used 

 to let him loose with a long lariat tied round 

 his neck, and one night this lariat twisted 

 up in a sage-brush, and in struggling to 

 free himself the pony got a half hitch round 

 his hind leg, threw himself, and fell over a 

 bank into a creek on a large stone. We 

 found him in the morning very much the 

 worse for wear and his hind legs swelled up 

 so that his chief method of progression was 

 by a series of awkward hops. Of course 

 no load could be put upon him, but he man- 

 aged to limp along behind the other horses, 

 and actually in the end reached the ranch on 

 the Little Missouri three hundred miles off. 

 No sooner had he got there and been turned 

 loose to rest than he fell down a big wash- 



