SADDLE HORSES. 169 



average thoroughbred to beat a good bronco for ten or 

 twenty miles. Many years ago, an army officer on 

 the plains offered to match his charger, a Kentucky 

 thoroughbred, with the swiftest pony owned by a cer- 

 tain Comanche tribe. The Comanches, it should be 

 added, are the best horsemen of their race, being the 

 only Indians who show any fondness, or even mercy, 

 for their steeds, or any skill in breeding them. Their 

 favorite color is the piebald. The chief accepted the 

 offer on one condition, namely, that the race should 

 be for a distance of not less than fourteen miles. 

 This match never came off, but the terms made by 

 the chief are significant of his opinion as to wherein 

 lay the superiority of the bronco. 



In another case the trial was actually made. Some 

 Kickapoo Indians, who, like almost all red men, are 

 desperate gamblers, bought a race horse of a white 

 man in Missouri, and took him out on the plains, a 

 journey of many hundred miles, for the purpose of 

 matching him against a certain Comanche pony. 

 They used great care with the horse, carrying with 

 them the grain and hay to which he was accustomed, 

 and they were perfectly confident of success. In fact, 

 they proposed to bet everything that they owned on 

 the result. Each man wore his entire wardrobe on his 

 back, — an Indian, like Lever's Irishman, puts on all 

 his finery at once, — and they converted the rest of 

 their property into a drove of ordinary horses, which 

 they took along to wager with the Comanches. But 

 the Comanche pony won, and the Kickapoo Indians 

 returned on foot, and nearly naked. 



In many parts of the West, broncos are driven as 

 well as ridden, and a pair of them harnessed to a light 



