SADDLE HORSES. 167 



wiry, nervous creature, always dancing about on her 

 small feet, and arching her thin neck, but perfectly 

 tractable. Pea Vine, like the other two horses just 

 mentioned, goes well in harness. 



We have one more breed, if not of saddle horses, at 

 least of saddle ponies, namely, the broncos. The 

 bronco, a rat of a horse, with ewe neck, a hammer 

 head, a short hip, and an easy, loping gait, is sup- 

 posed to have descended chiefly from Spanish horses 

 brought to this continent in the seventeenth century. 

 Privation and cold have reduced him iti size, stripped 

 him of all purely ornamental parts and qualities, 

 and developed his capacity for endurance. 



"The toughness and strength of the bronco," writes 

 Colonel T. A. Dodge in an interesting paper, 1 " can 

 scarcely be exaggerated. He will live through a win- 

 ter that will kill the hardiest cattle. He worries 

 through the long months when the snow has covered 

 up the bunch grass, on a diet of cottonwood boughs, 

 which the Indian cuts down for him ; and in the 

 spring it takes but a few weeks for him to scour out 

 into splendid condition." 



Another writer, Colonel R. I. Dodge, relates that a 

 pony carried the mail three hundred miles in three 

 consecutive nights, and back over the same road the 

 next week, and kept this up for six months without 

 loss of condition. 



" The absence of crest in the pony," Colonel T. A. 

 Dodge continues, " suggests the curious query what 

 has become of the proud, arching neck of his ancestor, 

 the Barb. There are two ways of accounting for this. 

 The Indian's gag-bit, invariably applied with a jerk, 



1 Harper's Magazine for May, 1891. 



